| Outcome/accomplishment:
A student team from the Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the
Atmosphere (CASA), an NSF-funded Engineering Research Center (ERC) headquartered
at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with its partner the University
of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, successfully installed and tested new Center-developed
weather-monitoring technology that can observe dangerous storms more accurately,
in harsher conditions, and at a lower cost than traditional radar equipment.
Their test, conducted at the American and Caribbean Olympic Games of Mayagüez,
observed a severe weather event and allowed an earlier forecast to be made
by the National Weather Service, resulting in a delay of the Games and
probably preventing injuries.
Impact/benefits:
The “off-the-grid” (OTG) weather-monitoring technology installed by the
CASA students will allow researchers to more closely monitor the lower
atmosphere, where dangerous weather takes place. Unlike Doppler radar
systems, OTG nodes are relatively inexpensive and modified to operate in
the event of a power loss, making them more reliable during severe weather
that could knock out Puerto Rico’s electrical grid. The OTG system
is expected to improve weather forecasting, and the testing helps develop
the next generation of researchers while reaching out to populations underrepresented
in the sciences and engineering.
Explanation/ background:
Because of the Earth’s curvature and terrain features, traditional radar
technology cannot monitor the lower troposphere (below 10,000 feet), which
is where dangerous weather takes place. In western Puerto Rico, this
means that severe weather events, such as a 2005 waterspout, can go completely
unnoticed on the National Weather Service’s NexRAD Doppler radar system.
Students and faculty at CASA have been working to close this “weather gap”
with a system of low-cost radar nodes modified to transmit data wirelessly
and maintain operations even when cut off from external power sources.
The OTG system was successfully tested by CASA students during the Central
American and Caribbean Olympic Games of Mayagüez, in July 2010.
Four portable low-power x-band
radars, modified and installed by CASA students, provided meteorological
data for western Puerto Rico to the National Weather Service (NWS) office
in San Juan. It is the first time ever that a marine radar
modified for weather applications and operating with renewable energy was
deployed and operated.
The Central American and
Caribbean Games provided a real-world test of the power of the testbed.
The CASA students were asked to support the games with their OTG radar
network. During the games, three OTG nodes operated almost continuously,
collecting data to be archived; and on the first day of the Games, the
system helped identify a squall line that had been misreported as a tornado.
The student network succeeded in imaging the damaging windstorm that impacted
the Games, causing significant damage. Data from their radars were transmitted
to the NWS office in San Juan, allowing earlier warnings to be issued and
the Games to be delayed until the threat had passed. Researchers
expect that OTG radars will improve weather forecasting in Puerto Rico’s
west coast and, eventually, in other countries with complex topography
and a need for low-cost radar systems.
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