1.4 Texas Tech Mobile Boundry Layer Observation systems: past successes, current plans and future goals

Monday, 10 January 2000: 9:45 AM
Mark R. Conder, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX; and R. E. Peterson, A. L. Doggett, and J. L. Schroeder

In the summer of 1998, the Wind Engineering Department at Texas Tech designed and built a 10.7 m tall mobile instrument platform dubbed WEMITE (Wind Engineering Mobile Instrumented Tower Experiment). Multiple height data was collected from deployments for Hurricane Bonnie and Hurricane Georges. Examination of the data is ongoing and new insights on the turbulent characteristics of the hurricane planetary boundary layer (HPBL)are being unraveled. For the 1999 Atlantic Hurricane Season, construction of a second tower was initiated. Using lessons learned from the original towerÂ’s deployments, the second tower is of lighter-weight construction, and takes less time to erect; however, it can still fully withstand intense hurricane winds tp to approximately 70 m/s. Furthermore, an instrumented car-rack, compatible with the NSSL VORTEX mobile mesonet system that can be mounted on a rental car, is also planned for deployment. The integration of these three systems should allow Texas Tech researchers to obtain meteorological data withhigh temporal and spatial resolution within the HPBL. This paper provides a brief technical outline of these systems, utilization and deployment strategies, and examples of data collected during historical deployments.
- Indicates paper has been withdrawn from meeting
- Indicates an Award Winner