The Northern Alabama Ground-Based Remote Sensing Mesoscale Network

This presentation describes the current configuration, components, and capabilities of the Northern Alabama Ground-based Remote Sensing Network, abbreviated herein as the Northern Alabama Network (NAN). The components of this evolving network, which consist of ground-based remote sensing platforms owned/managed by UAH, NASA/MSFC, NOAA/NWS, and the DoD, currently include four radars, three profiling systems, a lightning mapping array, six balloon sounding systems, and mobile/fixed in situinstruments. The mobile capability of many of these platforms enables an adaptable network configuration, and thereby provides flexibility in experimental design to sample an assortment of atmospheric phenomena.

Three of the radars are fixed and include the UAH C-band Advanced Radar for Meteorological and Operational Research (ARMOR), the NOAA/NWS KHTX WSR-88D S-band radar, and a new high-frequency S-band radar managed by the U.S. Army on Redstone Arsenal. All radars are conventional scanning radars with a dual polarization capability. The UAH Mobile Alabama X-band (MAX) radar can be deployed to one of three high-quality sites within the NAN domain. The radar network can be (and has been) configured to include a “nested grid” capability with both high-resolution boundary layer sampling with a short baseline (18 km) to longer baseline configurations (35, 44, and 70 km) for deeper tropospheric sampling over the NAN domain.

The profiling systems include multiple instruments that can be integrated in a post-analysis phase. These include:

• Mobile Integrated Profiling System (MIPS) with a 7-beam 915 MHz wind profiling radar, an X-band vertically profiling radar, a lidar ceilometer, a 35-channel microwave profiling radar, a Doppler mini sodar, and a suite of in situ surface sensors.
• Rapidly Deployable Atmospheric Profiling System (RaDAPS) with a 7-beam 915 MHz wind profiling radar, a lidar ceilometer, a 35-channel microwave profiling radar, a Doppler mini sodar, and a suite of in situ surface sensors.
• Mobile Doppler Lidar and Sounding System (MoDLS) with a Halo Photonics Doppler wind lidar, 12-channel microwave profiling radiometer, and in situ surface sensors.

Finally, the NASA Northern Alabama Lightning Mapping Array (NALMA) consists of a network of up to 11 VHF antennas that map the 3-D distribution of VHF sources, which provide information used to retrieve the 3-D structure of lightning flashes.

This presentation will summarize the past, current (e.g., VORTEX-SE) and future utilization of the NAN and provide examples covering a range of atmospheric phenomena and associated atmospheric spatial/temporal scales.