Early Fall Today, Field Campaign This Winter

I spent today scouting observing sites for a major field campaign that we will be conducting in the northern Wasatch this coming winter involving two mobile weather radars and a whole ton of other goodies.  The high at the Salt Lake City airport hit 101 and it was plenty hot in Huntsville where we were scouting, but it looked like September as there are colors on display already. 

I'm not sure how unusual this is, but in general it seems incredibly dry out there in non-irrigated areas and in many areas the foliage just seems to be giving up.  We have to hope we make it through the next few weeks without a major severe wildfire as it seems like everything is primed for explosive fire behavior if we were to get strong winds with a spark.  

Back to our scouting.  The program we are planning is called SNOWSCAPE and it will focus on winter storms across the northern Wasatch with a focus on the region from roughly Francis Peak to Ben Lomond, including the Ogden Valley.  

In the Huntsville area, we are looking for a place to operate several trailer-mounted instruments including profiling radars, laser ceilometers (which measure cloud base), and particle counters (which measure dust).  We would also launch weather balloons from the trailer during periods of "interesting" weather (no overnight operations).  We are looking for a site near or east of Huntsville, in the region between about the south branch of the south fork of the Ogden and 1300 North, with access to power and good site lines to the Snowbasin area that is open enough that we can safely launch weather balloons without worrying about entanglement in trees or power lines.  

If you think you might have a good location, would enjoy having the best weather station in the Ogden Valley this winter, and would like to entertain your friends with weather balloon launches during January and February, drop me an e-mail at jim.steenburgh at utah.edu.  Or if you know someone who might be interested, let them know and have them reach out to me.  We'd sure like to find a great site in that area and are happy to provide entertainment and potentially an educational experience for weather weenies young and old.  

I'll be blogging more about the campaign in the future.