Ticker for February 4, 2005

                
MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ... MESONET TICKER ...
February 4, 2005   February 4, 2005   February 4, 2005   February 4, 2005



Ticker Returns From Road Show

In case you haven't noticed, the Ticker hasn't made much Noyes lately.
In fact, it has now been two weeks of frosty silence.  But that's
because we've been Highwaymen as of late, participating in some
OCS Outreach functions away from the building. But out of tonight's
tawny sunset, we'll highlight one fascinating event captured by a
couple of OCS operators.


Sloshing Oscillation Makes Dramtic Cameo (Part One)

We've often written about a "sloshing" wave pattern that shows up in
very stable configurations.  Well it showed up again very strikingly
at Fairview on the morning of January 20th:



With a frequency of about one wave per hour, the winds at Fairview
ebbed and flowed from near calm to pushing out of the west at about
15 miles per hour.  This pattern repeated itself during the early
morning hours. The air temperature dropped and rebounded accordingly,
as stronger flow generated more turbulent mixing, allowing the coldest
air to be evacuated from the surface.

Also, at first glance, it appears that this feature happened in the
absence of any strong pressure features at the surface.  However, if
you look closely (and maybe use your imagination), you might be able
to see a wave pattern superimposed upon the morning's general falling
pressure trend.

This feature was captured on meteogram by Clayton Fain, a student
employee at the Oklahoma Mesonet.  At the same time Clayton was
studying this meteogram, Mesonet operator Nathan Bain was intrigued
by what he saw on radar.  And we'll discuss that in Part Two on Monday!