Fixed and Mobile Fire Weather Observatories in the U.S. Intermountain West

With funding from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratories, NOAA Air Resources Laboratory, and their Cooperative Institute partners are building and deploying four fixed and two mobile fire weather observatories in the intermountain region of the Western United States. The fixed observatories will each have a 449-MHz radar wind profiler; an Atmospheric Sounder Spectrometer by Infrared Spectral Technology (ASSIST); a laser ceilometer; surface radiation measurements; fast-response sonic anemometers and infrared gas analyzers for measuring the surface turbulent fluxes of heat, water vapor, CO2 and momentum; standard surface meteorology sensors; soil moisture profilers, and trace gas/aerosol concentration measurements including PM1 and PM10 particulate matter. Two mobile observing units will be created, with instrumentation mounted or transported in a trailer pulled by a pickup truck. These mobile observatories will be modeled after the Collaborative Lower Atmosphere Mobile Profiling System (CLAMPS) trailers built and operated by the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), but with slightly different instrumentation. Since NSSL has CLAMPS-1 and CLAMPS-2, these mobile units will be referred to as CLAMPS-3 and CLAMPS-4. These newer CLAMPS units will each contain a scanning Doppler lidar; an ASSIST infrared spectrometer; a laser ceilometer; surface radiation measurements; fast-response sonic anemometers and gas analyzers for measuring the surface turbulent fluxes of heat, water vapor, CO2 and momentum; standard surface meteorology sensors; soil moisture probes; and trace gas/aerosol concentration measurements. The instruments will be operated by a diesel generator, unless line power is readily available. Specially instrumented drone aircraft will be deployed along with the mobile observatories. The fixed observatories will be dispersed through the intermountain West at four sites, each with its own topographical and ground cover characteristics. The mobile units will be stationed at Table Mountain, near Boulder, Colorado, and will be deployed to controlled burn and/or actual wildfire events. These fire weather observatories will give researchers detailed surface and boundary-layer measurements to gain a better understanding of fire weather behavior. Some of the data and products from the observatories will be shared with weather forecasters, incident meteorologists, and other end users in near real time.