Ticker for June 11, 2002

                
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June 11, 2002      June 11, 2002      June 11, 2002      June 11, 2002


The Mesonet Goes Celestial!

When conditions warrant, Mesonet data can be collected for one-minute
intervals, as opposed to the usual five-minute intervals.  Such was
the case on May 10, 1994, when a total annular eclipse of the sun
occurred in our part of the world.  The one-minute Mesonet data
revealed subtle waves in the surface pressure and temperature fields
that followed the sun's shadow.

Today's solar eclipse, while not as total or lengthy as that of 1994,
offered another opportunity to collect some star-crossed (or is that
moon-crossed?) one-minute data.  The following is a note from Mesonet
lead operator David Demko, announcing the capture of some heavenly
data:

Hi,

We successfully collected about 6 hours of 1-minute Mesonet data
from the following stations in the panhandle and western Oklahoma
to capture waning hours of today's partial solar eclipse:

Kenton, Boise City, Goodwell, Hooker, Beaver, Slapout (intermittent
data due to comms problems), Buffalo, Arnett (only 2230-0200 UTC),
Hollis, Mangum, Tipton, Grandfield.

The data spans a time period from 2045 UTC to 0245 UTC.  Storms
across the area contaminated some of the data.  However, after taking
a cursory look at the observations, I can see that there is a good
eclipse signal in the solar radiation data from all of the panhandle
stations (save Slapout), Hollis, and Tipton/Grandfield to a lesser
degree.

Ticker note: Capturing one-minute data is no trivial task.  Congrats
to the Mesonet operations staff for pulling in this data while
maintaining their normal high standard of performance.