Editor’s note: Siegfried Schobesberger, a postdoctoral researcher at University of Washington, sent this update.
Sunday, April 24, 2016, the HI-SCALE campaign (part 1) officially started. The Gulfstream-159 (G-1) aircraft made its way from Pasco, Washington, to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, just yesterday—on board were the pilots, mechanics, and a few Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists. The flight at 19,000 feet was bumpy (mainly due to the Rocky Mountains not far below), but also because of clouds, which provided some welcome opportunities to test some of the on-board instrumentation designed to investigate cloud microphysics and chemistry.
The rest of the science team arrived by last night as well (by somewhat less exciting modes of travel), hauling from Seattle, Tri-Cities, Chicago, and Long Island. By now, most of us have already met each other over the past few weeks of installing measurement equipment into the G-1 at its home base in Pasco, Washington. So, in theory, we have arrived here in Bartlesville all ready to go.
The HI-SCALE campaign’s ground site, ARM’s Southern Great Plains (SGP) site just 80 miles west of Bartlesville, has been made ready as of last week. The site now boasts a much more comprehensive set of atmospheric measurement equipment than it usually does.
Nonetheless, day 1 is a fairly calm start into the campaign. Reason one, I assume, is because it’s Sunday, and it appears there is practically no one else around (like, locals) at the airport. Reason two, one of the aircraft’s electrical power inverters needed to run some of the science payload had broken down and needed fixing. That actually was not unwelcome for the whole team, as we like to double-check that all our instruments are working as they should (the more cutting-edge the instrument, the more likely it is to have problems!), to tweak and tune them, and generally to try to make sure that we are ready for the ‘BIG’ day tomorrow.
Tomorrow, Monday, April 25, is when we have scheduled our first science flight to take off at 11 a.m. Weather permitting, we will first head out due southwest to check out the air upwind form the SGP site (southerly winds are forecast), and then over the site, at various altitudes. Hopefully there will be some low clouds there as well—the campaign’s main subject of study. At least the forecasters promised some…
The calm is felt today in light of the further weather forecast: Tuesday, we have a good chance of getting some serious storms! Today’s forecasts have placed the area with the highest likelihood of severe thunderstorms right onto where we are. (The risk is forecast to be ‘enhanced.’ What that means specifically can be found at http://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/about.html#Convective). So, who knows, maybe we will see a tornado! Recalling the associated dangers, it may be foolish to be excited about that, but for most of us, that would be a first.
P.S. The plan is NOT to fly into tornadoes… Or anywhere close for that matter!