11.3 Optimizing the Ceilometer Tilt Angle: A Case Study Analysis

Thursday, 18 January 2001: 2:00 PM
David M. Giles, Raytheon Information Technology and Scientific Services, Sterling, VA

Ceilometer detection of cloud base height (CBH) can be adversely affected by falling rain drops or snow flakes. A strong increase in signal return due to precipitation causes the ceilometer to interpret CBH much lower than the actual CBH. A recent study by the National Weather Service (NWS) Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) program showed that 25,000-foot (25K) ceilometers tilted by 8 degrees do not significantly improve performance over a vertically-pointed ceilometers in liquid precipitation. The ASOS program extended this study for three months to explore tilt angles between 1 and 15 degrees from vertical during periods of liquid precipitation.
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