Mobile Measurements in Mountainous Terrain: Challenges and Opportunities

Procedures for utilization of vehicle-based surface observations in mountainous terrain are being developed to improve interpretation and understanding of multi-scale thermodynamic variations in environments that are poorly sampled by traditional techniques. Cases from various meteorological scenarios in geographically diverse locations have been collected to show detailed structures of terrain-impacted features such as cold air pools, synoptic fronts, local moisture pooling, and slope aspect effects. The mobile data are discussed in concert with observations from nearby fixed surface sites and sounding data. Specific challenges to analysis of mobile meteorological data in complex terrain are also discussed, including the adequacy of GPS and digital elevation map (DEM) elevation data for calculation of potential temperature.