TY - JOUR
T1 - The Flexible Array of Radars and Mesonets (FARM)
AU - Wurman, Joshua
AU - Kosiba, Karen
AU - Pereira, Brian
AU - Robinson, Paul
AU - Frambach, Andrew
AU - Gilliland, Alycia
AU - White, Trevor
AU - Aikins, Josh
AU - Trapp, Robert J.
AU - Nesbitt, Stephen
AU - Hanshaw, Maiana N.
AU - Lutz, Jon
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments. The FARM comprises observational systems developed, constructed, maintained, and operated over 26-plus years. We thank the literally hundreds of operators, drivers, and other supporters of the dozens of educational and research missions, including Curtis Alexander, Steve Weygandt, David Dowell, Scott Richardson, Yvette Richardson, Herb Stein, Jerry Straka, and Erik Rasmussen from the early years. We thank the engineers, software engineers, and scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, especially Mitch Randall, Chris Burghart, Eric Loew, Mike Dixon, Jeff Keeler, Jim Wilson, and Dave Carlson, the staff of the Center for Severe Weather Research (CSWR), especially Ling Chan, Justin Walker, Rachel Humphrey, Danny Cheresnick, Jim Marquis, Traeger Meyer, and the many experts in the radar meteorology community who provided wisdom over the years, including Earle Williams, Dave Atlas, Isztar Zawadski, Fredric Fabry, Dusan Zrnić, Dick Doviak, Paul Markowski, and Katja Friedrich. Support for the FARM, its DOW Facility precursor, and its missions was provided by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Forest Service, the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Illinois, the State of Colorado, and several other sources.
Funding Information:
The FARM comprises observational systems developed, constructed, maintained, and operated over 26-plus years. We thank the literally hundreds of operators, drivers, and other supporters of the dozens of educational and research missions, including Curtis Alexander, Steve Weygandt, David Dowell, Scott Richardson, Yvette Richardson, Herb Stein, Jerry Straka, and Erik Rasmussen from the early years. We thank the engineers, software engineers, and scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, especially Mitch Randall, Chris Burghart, Eric Loew, Mike Dixon, Jeff Keeler, Jim Wilson, and Dave Carlson, the staff of the Center for Severe Weather Research (CSWR), especially Ling Chan, Justin Walker, Rachel Humphrey, Danny Cheresnick, Jim Marquis, Traeger Meyer, and the many experts in the radar meteorology community who provided wisdom over the years, including Earle Williams, Dave Atlas, Isztar Zawadski, Fredric Fabry, Dusan Zrnic, Dick Doviak, Paul Markowski, and Katja Friedrich. Support for the FARM, its DOW Facility precursor, and its missions was provided by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Forest Service, the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Illinois, the State of Colorado, and several other sources.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Meteorological Society.
PY - 2021/8
Y1 - 2021/8
N2 - The Flexible Array of Radars and Mesonets (FARM) Facility is an extensive mobile/ quickly deployable (MQD) multiple-Doppler radar and in situ instrumentation network. The FARM includes four radars: two 3-cm dual polarization, dual frequency (DPDF), Doppler on Wheels (DOW6/DOW7), the Rapid-Scan DOW (RSDOW), and a quickly deployable (QD) DPDF 5-cm C band on Wheels (COW). The FARM includes three mobile mesonet (MM) vehicles with 3.5-m masts, an array of rugged QD weather stations (PODNET), QD weather stations deployed on infrastructure such as light/power poles (POLENET), four disdrometers, six MQD upper-air sounding systems and a Mobile Operations and Repair Center (MORC). The FARM serves a wide variety of research/ educational uses. Components have deployed to >30 projects during 1995-2020 in the United States, Europe, and South America, obtaining pioneering observations of a myriad of small spatial- and temporal-scale phenomena including tornadoes, hurricanes, lake-effect snow storms, aircraft-affecting turbulence, convection initiation, microbursts, intense precipitation, boundary layer structures and evolution, airborne hazardous substances, coastal storms, wildfires and wildfire suppression efforts, weather modification effects, and mountain/alpine winds and precipitation. The radars and other FARM systems support innovative educational efforts, deploying >40 times to universities/colleges, providing hands-on access to cutting-edge instrumentation for their students. The FARM provides integrated multiple radar, mesonet, sounding, and related capabilities enabling diverse and robust coordinated sampling of three-dimensional vector winds, precipitation, and thermodynamics increasingly central to a wide range of mesoscale research. Planned innovations include S-band on Wheels Network (SOWNET) and Bistatic Adaptable Radar Network (BARN), offering more qualitative improvements to the field project observational paradigm, providing broad, flexible, and inexpensive 10-cm radar coverage and vector wind field measurements.
AB - The Flexible Array of Radars and Mesonets (FARM) Facility is an extensive mobile/ quickly deployable (MQD) multiple-Doppler radar and in situ instrumentation network. The FARM includes four radars: two 3-cm dual polarization, dual frequency (DPDF), Doppler on Wheels (DOW6/DOW7), the Rapid-Scan DOW (RSDOW), and a quickly deployable (QD) DPDF 5-cm C band on Wheels (COW). The FARM includes three mobile mesonet (MM) vehicles with 3.5-m masts, an array of rugged QD weather stations (PODNET), QD weather stations deployed on infrastructure such as light/power poles (POLENET), four disdrometers, six MQD upper-air sounding systems and a Mobile Operations and Repair Center (MORC). The FARM serves a wide variety of research/ educational uses. Components have deployed to >30 projects during 1995-2020 in the United States, Europe, and South America, obtaining pioneering observations of a myriad of small spatial- and temporal-scale phenomena including tornadoes, hurricanes, lake-effect snow storms, aircraft-affecting turbulence, convection initiation, microbursts, intense precipitation, boundary layer structures and evolution, airborne hazardous substances, coastal storms, wildfires and wildfire suppression efforts, weather modification effects, and mountain/alpine winds and precipitation. The radars and other FARM systems support innovative educational efforts, deploying >40 times to universities/colleges, providing hands-on access to cutting-edge instrumentation for their students. The FARM provides integrated multiple radar, mesonet, sounding, and related capabilities enabling diverse and robust coordinated sampling of three-dimensional vector winds, precipitation, and thermodynamics increasingly central to a wide range of mesoscale research. Planned innovations include S-band on Wheels Network (SOWNET) and Bistatic Adaptable Radar Network (BARN), offering more qualitative improvements to the field project observational paradigm, providing broad, flexible, and inexpensive 10-cm radar coverage and vector wind field measurements.
KW - In situ atmospheric observations
KW - Mesoscale processes
KW - Radars/Radar observations
KW - Radiosonde/rawinsonde observations
KW - Surface observations
KW - Weather radar signal processing
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U2 - 10.1175/BAMS-D-20-0285.1
DO - 10.1175/BAMS-D-20-0285.1
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85114032643
SN - 0003-0007
VL - 102
SP - E1499-E1525
JO - Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
JF - Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
IS - 8
ER -