Notes from the Field

Today’s post will be a ‘guest’ post from Luke Madaus, expert weather forecaster, numerical modeler and graduate student from the University of Washington. A Day in the life of an OLYMPEX forecaster by Luke Madaus. When people think of field campaigns, they usually think of windblown scientists, struggling against the elements to get those critical […]

The impact of CYGNSS data in tropical cyclone models can be evaluated long before the satellites ever leave the ground... with the help of an OSSE.

By Christine Dow The Nansen Ice Shelf, where we have installed our GPS, is notoriously windy. This is clear from the blue ice on the surface and complete lack of snow, which gets rapidly swept away by katabatic winds (winds driven down from the glacier towards the sea by differences in pressure induced by the […]

Ground-based weather radars are a critical component of the OLYMPEX project on the Olympic Peninsula. Situated near the coast, NASA’s NPOL radar records precipitation data over the ocean and toward the mountains. As with any scanning weather radar, the beam width and height above ground increases with distance from the radar. Therefore, even though NPOL is […]

By Christine Dow Day to day life at the base station is varied primarily by timing of our field expeditions. We’ve had some very busy days getting equipment ready, deploying and checking our gear. In between, however, we are essentially operating as we would do at the office. We have set up base in the […]

By Ryan Walker Our second day of installing equipment was on November 21. After a cloudy day off, we had perfect sunny weather. We began by installing our two tilt meters at Comein Glacier, which flows into the Nansen Ice Shelf through a small inlet just north of the much larger Reeves Glacier. Most of […]

The western side of the Olympic Mountains is a sight to behold, with crashing waves along the rocky coast and mossy trees in the rain forest signifying the impressive amounts of precipitation that falls in this area. The ongoing Olympic Mountains Experiment (OLYMPEX) is set up to measure rain and snow over the ocean up to the highest […]

By Brian Walker November 19th — After the final cargo flight on November 17th, we finally had all our equipment and could prepare for installation. This wasn’t without some drama, as we initially received only four batteries and various pipes, but none of the actual instruments. After a few tense hours of emailing, we found […]

By Ryan Walker On our first full day at Jang Bogo, we weren’t expecting very much to happen. The majority of our equipment wouldn’t be arriving for another three days, so we thought we would settle in and learn about the basic amenities of the station — food, showers, laundry, wifi, espresso machine. (I’m not […]