Extended Abstract (352K)5.5
An Overview of the Oklahoma City Urban Micronet Test Facility
Thomas E. Winning Jr., Oklahoma Climatololgical Survey, Norman, OK; and B. G. Illston, M. M. Ferris, and J. B. Basara
In June 2006, the Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS) completed construction of the Oklahoma City Urban Micronet (OCUM) test facility in Norman, Oklahoma. The purpose of the facility is to monitor the quality of data collected by the Vaisala Weather Transmitter WXT510, which will be used in the implementation of the OCUM, as well as a calibration site for sensors previously deployed. As such, before WXT510 sensors are deployed in Oklahoma City, they are installed and tested at the intercomparison facility which currently is comprised of 33 Vaisala WXT510 multi-sensors, a Vaisala HMP45C, Thermometric's FastTherm, and a Vaisala 2-D sonic anemometer installed in a 10 meter square test grid. Each sensor package is mounted at a height of 2 meters with a minimum separation of 80 centimeters. The WXT510 sensors are monitored and compared to each other as well as the aforementioned control sensors and four WaterLog tipping bucket rain gauges that are deployed around the array of sensors for precipitation analyses.
Since inception, data has been continuously collected in five-minute intervals and analyzed to identify mean, variance, standard deviation, and other statistical values among the measurements of all sensors. Initial analyses have shown that rain totals from the WXT510 are consistently higher than those from the tipping bucket gauges. In addition, the accumulated precipitation data and two meter wind speed values are less than the data collected from the nearby (~100 meters) Norman Mesonet Station (NRMN). Analyses of air temperature, dewpoint and relative humidity from the WXT510 sensors have revealed very little variance with respect to the control sensors.
Session 5, Accuracy and Calibration of Instrumentation
Wednesday, 17 January 2007, 8:30 AM-10:00 AM, 207A
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