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.
Day 8 of the Perdigao IOP. The weather warm and sunny. Very little surface wind. Upper level winds are getting stronger and the system struggles to receive the data to burst due to the hills to the east.
Four sondes launched at 00UT, 06UT, 12UT & 18UT without issues.
The PTB330 pressure sensor as part of the surface met station has stopped working. for the 00UT launch there was some oscillation, which by 12UT was extreme and no meaningful reading could be taken.
About 35 students from the University of Porto stopped by for the noon time launch. I did a short show-and-tell presentation after the launch.
Day 7 of the Perdigao IOP. The weather has warmed up and become mostly clear. Upper level winds have calmed down and the sondes could be received to their burst point.
Four sondes launched yesterday and today at 00UT, 06UT, 12UT & 18UT. All systems are working.
Lou disconnected the grounding wire on the water vapor DIAL following Scott's instruction. No report of further issues.
Lou installed a few concrete bricks as steps to the trailer.
Today the local community club organized a lunch for the community and campaign participants. 7 of us participated.
Day 5 of the Perdigao IOP. With the passage of a cold front the weather cooled significantly and it became rainy and much colder than yesterday.
Four sondes launched at 00UT, 06UT, 12UT & 18UT.
The 06UT and 12 UT sondes were launched in rain. Used about 43 bar of helium for the noon sounding to account for the extra weight of water on the balloon.
Restarted the Ubiquity antenna link on the water vapor DIAL after Scott Spuler alerted us that he lost communication to the DIAL. When we opened the DIAL, the system appeared completely functional with the exception of the lost network access. Unplugging and reconnecting the Ubiquity solved the problem.
Bill left in the afternoon.
Day 4 of the Perdigao IOP. Weather fine and very warm, with thick cirrus layer and generally light winds.
Four sondes launched at 00UT, 06UT, 12UT & 18UT.
We are beginning to loose telemetry signal earlier, due to the sonde disappearing behind the ridge to our east. We use about 40 bar of helium per sounding.
Checked the 1290 profiler site. The air conditioning in the shed works and keeps the max temperature below 32°C or so.
Set up the surface met tower at the sounding site.
Day 3 of the Perdigao IOP. Weather fine and very warm, with scattered thin cirrus and light winds.
3 Soundings launched today, 0UT, 6UT, and 18UT - the 12UT sounding was skipped due to the change over from the van to the office trailer - which finally arrived around noon. We had to dismantle the van setup to make room for the trailer,. The truck turned out to be too large to get to our prefered location at the sounding site. Instead the trailer was loaded to a point close to the main valley road where the crane truck could reach, up the hill from the Helium and sounding antenna. (The second trailer, destined for the Notre Dame site, was returned to the supplier since their site is too remote for delivery by such a large truck). Power was run to the trailer and sounding equipment was set up in time for the 18 UTC sounding. The DM computer, surface met and network are not yet installed and we are aiming to start on those tomorrow.
Holger arrived in time for the 18 UTC sounding.
Day 2 of IOP. Weather fine and sunny with just widely scattered cirrus, almost no wind.
Four soundings launch today (0Z, 6Z, 12Z & 18Z). The office trailer for the sounding site was supposed to arrive today however was delayed again - this time apparently due to a truck breakdown. They are now saying it will arrive tomorrow morning. In the meantime, we have no surface met or DM computer at the sounding site, and so no sounding data is being transferred.
The profiler site was shutdown for several hours while the power company installed an extra line to enable DLR to operate their radiometer at the site. We also installed an air conditioning unit in the shed, since the temperatures inside have been over 40C many days and occasionally reaching over 45C.
