Day 23 of the Perdigao IOP. Today was hot with clear skies and light winds. The 18 UTC sonde measured 45 C in the trailer prior to launch.
Four regular sondes were launched today, at 00 UTC, 06 UTC, 12 UTC & 18 UTC, with no issues.
John reset the WV DIAL and realigned the Ubiquiti antenna, which resolved the issue with the instrument not reporting since the power loss the night before.
Day 22 of the Perdigao IOP. Today was very warm with few Cu during the afternoon and mostly clear skies in the morning and evening. Surface winds were calm to very weak.
Four regular sondes were launched today, at 00 UTC, 06 UTC, 12 UTC & 18 UTC, with no major issues. The 12 UTC sonde had trouble acquiring GPS and also lost winds between 790-640 mb. Three additional radiosondes were launched at 15, 21, and 03 UTC as part of the OU supersonde schedule. There were no issues with these either.
Notre Dame re-installed their scanning lidar in the afternoon. At some point in the evening the breaker tripped in the power box at the road and all of the lidars lost power. This potentially happened around 20 UTC. No effect was noticed in the ISS trailer. I reset the breaker in the morning of 23 May and the lidars powered back up.
Day 21 of the Perdigao IOP. Today was warm with mostly clear skies through mid-afternoon, then mostly clear skies with haze (perhaps dust from N Africa, as was forecast). Surface winds were mostly weak and southerly.
Four sondes were launched today, at 00 UTC, 06 UTC, 12 UTC & 18 UTC, with no issues. The potential supersonde schedule was scrubbed for today, but is being discussed for tomorrow.
Day 20 of the Perdigao IOP. Today was another pleasant day, with mostly clear skies and warm temperatures. Surface winds were weak, while winds aloft were veering, from the NNW to SSW.
Four sondes were launched today, at 00 UTC, 06 UTC, 12 UTC & 18 UTC, with no issues. Supersonde schedule is being discussed for Sunday or Monday, with decision to be made after weather briefing on Sunday.
Day 19 of the Perdigao IOP. Today was another pleasant day, with clear skies and fairly cool temperatures. Winds were weaker today than yesterday. There was a small wildfire N of sounding site this morning, which created a smoke plume through the valley during the 12 UTC launch. The fire was extinguished by mid afternoon.
Four sondes were launched today, at 00 UTC, 06 UTC, 12 UTC & 18 UTC, with no issues.
Day 18 of the Perdigao IOP. The weather was extremely pleasant today, with clear skies and cool temperatures. Winds were a bit gusty out of the north through the afternoon, but calmed by late evening.
Four sondes were launched today, at 00 UTC, 06 UTC, 12 UTC & 18 UTC, with no issues.
Day 17 of the Perdigao IOP. The weather was only a bit cooler, with more cumulus development than in recent days. A cold front passed in the late afternoon, increasing wind gusts and cooling things off.
Four sondes launched at 00 UTC, 06 UTC, 12 UTC & 18 UTC. The 12 and 18 UTC sondes had weak signals above 300 hPa and lost signal completely above ~250 hPa.
Day 16 of the Perdigao IOP. The weather was quite warm, with more clouds than in recent days, but still mostly calm surface winds.
Four sondes launched at 00 UTC, 06 UTC, 12 UTC & 18 UTC. The 12 UTC sonde did not appear to unwind, despite the rubber stopper being removed. Otherwise there were no issues.
Day 15 of the Perdigao IOP. The weather was pleasant, although a bit warm, with high clouds and mostly calm surface winds.
Four sondes launched at 00 UTC, 06 UTC, 12 UTC & 18 UTC, all without issues.
Additional sondes launched by OU students at 15 UTC, 21 UTC Monday, and 03 UTC Tuesday morning. None of these appear to have had any issues either.
Day 14 of the Perdigao IOP. The weather was pleasant, with broken clouds and calm surface winds.
Four sondes launched at 00UT, 06UT, 12UT & 18UT. No issues.
The skew-T plots have been restored.
Added soundings are scheduled for Monday afternoon into Tuesday morning.
Day 13 of the Perdigao IOP. The weather was pleasant, with broken clouds and calm surface winds.
Four sondes launched at 00UT, 06UT, 12UT & 18UT. Two students from CU and one from Berkley arrived today. I did a first training session with the noon time launch.
Lou restarted the data manager at the ISS3 profiler site, the profiler computer had been operating through the entire DM issue.
The skew-T plots stopped showing up on the web site yesterday. Will look at it during the evening launch.
John arrived today, yeah.
Day 12 of the Perdigao IOP. The weather was cold with not as many showers as the days before. Surface gusts at launch stronger than before.
Four sondes launched at 00UT, 06UT, 12UT & 18UT.
The 06UT, sonde did not properly ascend. It reached a ceiling 630 m asl, crossed the north eastern ridge line, descended to 600 m, then rose again to 630 m before the telemetry signal was lost. Inflation happened again in rain and He cylinders had to be switched. The balloon went through trees right after launch, possibly puncturing it.
Inflation without the flow meter is slightly faster and we went back to just using the bottle pressure as gauge.
The data manager at the ISS3 profiler site stopped working this afternoon.
Day 11 of the Perdigao IOP. The weather was cold and rainy with occasional surface gusts at launch.
Four sondes launched at 00UT, 06UT, 12UT & 18UT without issues. The 06UT, sonde was inflated and launched in rain.
For the 18UT and the 00UT (12 May) we used the flow meter. However, this slows the gas flow even further and it was not used in subsequent soundings.
There was a massive network outage in the valley following a thunderstorm with some small hail in the afternoon. Wind profiler, SODAR and sounding systems were not impacted, only networking.
Since inflation takes about 15 min, this poses the possible risk that a storm comes up during this time with staff still outside holding on to the balloon.
Matt Paulus arrived today.
Day 10 of the Perdigao IOP. The weather was cold and rainy with occasional surface gusts.
Four sondes launched at 00UT, 06UT, 12UT & 18UT without issues. The 06UT, 12UT, and 18UT sonde were inflated and launched in rain.
Starting at midnight, we used the new replacement regulator. The gas flow is substantially slower and we need to take the extra preparation time into account. Furthermore the gas amount is slightly different, since the cylinders don't cool as much.
Day 9 of the Perdigao IOP. The weather pleasant and partly cloudy. Weak surface winds.
Three sondes launched at 00UT, 06UT, & 18UT without issues. I missed the 12UT sonde since the regulator broke during filling. As a result I couldn't regulate the gas flow anymore, the gas flow was too high and blew up the neck of the balloon during filling. For the 18UT launch, we borrowed the regulator, which the University of Notre Dame is using. The regulators, which had been ordered already last week to replace this one, were still in Lisbon in the afternoon, and were shipped express to our hotel in Castelo Branco, where they arrived at 21:00 local time. The following midnight launch was done using the new regulator.