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Hazardous Incident Rapid In-Flight Support Effort: Use of Asynoptic Upper-Air Data to Improve Weather Forecasts at Wildland Fires & Other Hazardous Incidents

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Hazardous Incident Rapid In-Flight Support Effort: Use of Asynoptic Upper-Air Data to Improve Weather Forecasts at Wildland Fires & Other Hazardous Incidents 4.3 HI-RISE – HAZARDOUS INCIDENT RAPID IN-FLIGHT SUPPORT EFFORT: USE OF ASYNOPTIC UPPER-AIR DATA TO IMPROVE WEATHER FORECASTS AT WILDLAND FIRES & OTHER HAZARDOUS INCIDENTS Paul G. Witsaman* NOAA/NWS/Southern Region Headquarters, Ft. Worth, TX Jon W. Zeitler, Monte C. Oaks NOAA/NWS New Braunfels, TX Greg P. Murdoch, Seth R. Nagle+ NOAA/NWS Midland/Odessa, TX W.C. Hoffmann, B.K. Fritz USDA-ARS, College Station, TX 1. INTRODUCTION Quality weather forecasts for wildland fires Manual observations using a belt weather kit can and other hazardous material (HAZMAT) incidents be taken more frequently by the IMET or the depend on surface and upper air observations incident crew. along with model data. Often, meteorologists deploy directly to the wildfire or incident. These However, the spatial and temporal on-site meteorologists are called Incident resolution of upper air observations is much Meteorologists (IMETs). Off-site meteorological coarser. The average distance between support is also provided by National Weather rawinsonde stations in the Continental U.S. is 315 Service (NWS) Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs). km (Fig. 1; OFCM, 1997). These upper air observations are taken two times per day around Routine and non-routine surface 0000 and 1200 UTC. There is a processing and observations provide invaluable information to transmission time-delay of one to three hours from monitor current weather, warn others of impending the time of the upper air observation until data is hazards, and to improve incident forecasts. available for use by the IMET. Despite the spatial Surface observations from fixed Remote and temporal limitations of the synoptic upper air Automated Weather Station (RAWS) sites, observation network, IMETs use this data to make portable RAWS or other nearby sensors forecasts. (Automated Weather Observing System − AWOS, Automated Surface Observing System − ASOS, etc.) usually provide adequate spatial and temporal resolution to understand surface weather conditions. In addition, supplemental surface observations taken by IMETs or trained incident crew members can provide a relatively dense observation grid in even the most remote areas. Two or more observation points with at least hourly data are common within 16 to 40 km (10 to 25 miles) of the incident, according to National Fire Weather Operations Coordinator L.J. VanBussum (personal communication, 2005). ________________________________________ +Current affiliation: NOAA/NWS San Angelo, TX *Corresponding author’s address: Paul G. Witsaman, National Weather Service, 819 Taylor Street, Fort Worth, TX, 76102- Figure 1: Continental U.S. rawinsonde sites. 6171; email: [email protected] The HI-RISE (Hazardous Incident − Rapid sounding and forecast data to operational In-flight Support Effort) concept would allow meteorologists. While these reports have greatly routine access to real-time local upper air enhanced the availability of upper air data to observations at an incident similar to surface supplement rawinsonde observations, most of this observations; which would significantly improve data are confined to ascent/descent regions weather forecasts. On April 21, 2005 at a around major hubs or elevations above 7620 m controlled burn site in central Texas, asynoptic (25 000 ft) MSL (Moninger et al. 2003). upper air data were collected and relayed in real- time from a single-engine air tanker aircraft to on- As technological improvements to sensing site IMETs and to a meteorologist at WFO equipment have become more cost effective, a Austin/San Antonio, TX (EWX). This HI-RISE test recent initiative capitalized on the lower level flight was a collaborative effort between four patterns of smaller aircraft. The National organizations: NWS, Texas Forest Service (TFS), Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) USDA Agricultural Research Station (USDA-ARS), spearheaded the Tropospheric Airborne College Station, TX, and Aventech Research Inc. Meteorological Data Report (TAMDAR) project (Aventech), Barrie, ON, Canada. NWS (Daniels et al. 2004). The TAMDAR goal was to participants included meteorologists from EWX, utilize regional commercial aircraft serving smaller WFO Midland/Odessa, TX (MAF), and Southern airports to collect data mainly below 7620 m MSL. Region Headquarters in Fort Worth, TX. This effort complemented the high-level ACARS data collection by dramatically increasing data Two on-site IMETs provided forecasts and points in both time and space. briefing support for the incident (controlled burn). One lead IMET served as the official weather From Fall 2004 through Spring 2005, the source for both ground and air operations. This Great Lakes Flight Experiment (GLFE) tested the IMET had access to the HI-RISE upper air data to utility of TAMDAR. GLFE equipped TAMDAR adjust the forecast if necessary. The second sensors on 64 turbo-prop Saab 340 aircraft. The IMET served as a control without access to the aircraft flew routes to 75 airports around the Great supplementary data. Any adjustments to this Lakes (Moninger et al. 2004). The aircraft control forecast would come from the routine collected wind speed, wind direction, temperature, sources of weather data available to IMETs. EWX humidity, turbulence, and icing data. In addition to would also have access to the HI-RISE data for access through the FSL ACARS website, the data incident support and preparation of routine, daily were incorporated into the Rapid Update Cycle fire weather forecasts. This paper will discuss: (RUC) Model and provided to NWS forecasters for templates for HI-RISE, the sensing and comparative analysis. HI-RISE builds on the communication equipment used, the HI-RISE ACARS and TAMDAR concepts to provide data at aircraft, the sounding analysis software used, a the incident management scale. discussion of weather conditions, analysis of the HI-RISE data, input from the fire crew, and 3. SENSING AND COMMUNICATION conclusions and recommendations for additional EQUIPMENT HI-RISE tests. 3.1 AIMMS-20 2. TEMPLATES FOR HI-RISE The Aircraft–Integrated Meteorological The ability to collect routine weather data Measurement System (AIMMS-20) (Figs. 2 and 3) from aircraft has been available for several used for HI-RISE is a fully integrated turnkey decades, but was not necessarily cost effective. system that can be installed on a wide variety of This changed with the development of automated aircraft types. Raw sensor data is processed on- weather sensors and improvements in board the aircraft, resulting in datasets comprised communication technology. First developed as of temperature and humidity, each tagged in three- part of the Global Weather Experiment in 1979 dimensional space and time. The AIMMS-20 (Fleming, 1996), the Aircraft Communications, combines air data from an externally mounted Addressing, and Reporting System (ACARS) is probe with GPS and inertial signals to compute now utilized in commercial aircraft to provide over high-accuracy wind speed and direction data in 130 000 daily wind and temperature observations. real time. This data is processed by NOAA’s Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) to provide real-time The purchase price of the AIMMS-20 is record to construct sounding data files in comma- $28,000 U.S. Dollars (USD). Installation and separated variable (CSV) format that can be certification typically costs less than $3,000 USD. readily imported into a sounding analysis program. The Iridium satellite communication option adds The sounding data files were then sent via Internet $4,000 USD to the hardware cost, and email to the IMETs and the WFO meteorologist. approximately $10 USD per hour for the data link. The latency of the Iridium network (i.e., time from Installation typically takes 1-2 days. aircraft transmission to Aventech) is measured in seconds. However, it took approximately 15 min from the top of the aircraft ascent to have the data assembled, inspected, sounding profile extracted, and delivered via email to the IMETs and the WFO meteorologist. Figure 2: Front view of AIMMS-20 mounted on the AT402 HI-RISE aircraft. Figure 4: HI-RISE data flow. The AIMMS-20 logs data records every 20 s during level flight and once every 5 s during periods of ascent or descent. Data transmission is automatically scheduled by the AIMMS-20 once an internal data buffer has accumulated 20 records, which translates into a 400 s period Figure 3: Rear view of the AIMMS-20. during cruise and a 100 s period during ascents and descents. This variable frequency scheme Although data can be transmitted to a was selected to minimize the volume of data by cockpit display, HI-RISE did not employ this focusing on flight segments with rapidly changing option. The high intensity and dangerous nature of altitude to provide good vertical resolution for the wildland fire and other HAZMAT type missions resulting sounding profiles. A 5 s update period requires that the pilot’s full attention be focused on corresponds to a vertical resolution of ~25 m if the flying. Instead, HI-RISE data was sent via the climb or decent rate is 305 m min-1 (~1,000 ft min- Iridium satellite network, with AIMMS-20 operation 1). A 20 s update period corresponds to a being completely transparent to the pilot. horizontal resolution of 1.2 km at a cruise speed of 62 m s-1 (~120 kts). As illustrated in Figure 4, data were transmitted from the aircraft to Iridium satellite 3.2 Calibration and Comparison with Ledbetter constellation 780 km overhead, then from the NOAA Profiler Iridium constellation to the Iridium ground station. The ground station then forwarded the data via The AIMMS-20 requires an initial flight Internet email to Aventech. Aventech extracted calibration for each installation to achieve full slant-vertical ascent segments from the flight accuracy of 0.5–1.0 m s-1 for the wind vector components. A calibration flight requires only 10 flight requirement of this study could not have min of flight time and a post-analysis to determine been completed without the IFR capabilities. The the set of parameters that characterize flight plan was an ascending box pattern near the aerodynamic errors due to the host aircraft burn site.
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