East Meadow Site-Sensing Metadata
Instrumentation...
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- GEONOR precipitation
gauge on separate stand
- NADP
site on separate stands ,
includes
- Belfort rain gauge with ink-pen recording drum
- Covered precipitation collector bucket
- 100'
instrument tower on concrete pad ;
site includes the following:
| Quantity: | Instrument: |
| Wind speed & direction - 100' | 05103-L R.M. Young Wind Monitor |
| Wind speed & direction - 25' | 05103 R.M. Young Wind Monitor |
| RH/air temperature - 100' | Vaisala HMP45AC |
| RH/air temperature - 25' | Vaisala HMP45AC |
| Atmospheric pressure | CS105/Vaisala PTB-101B transducer |
| Solar radiation | Li-Cor Pyranometer LI-200X |
| Soil moisture & temp - 2", 8", 20" | Stevens Hydra Probes |
| Precipitation | Geonor T-200B Precipitation Gauge |
| Snow depth - interval | Judd Communications Ultrasonic Depth Sensor |
| Snow depth - total | Judd Communications Ultrasonic Depth Sensor |
| Snow water equivalent | Snow pillow |
| Snow melt pan | Generic 3-wire tipping bucket |
| Snow melt pan | Generic 3-wire tipping bucket |
Location...
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The historic weather station was established in 1950 in the lower camp just west of the tool shed. Over the years, this location grew over with evergreen trees, rendering it less accurate as a weather data collection and atmospheric monitoring site.
In the fall of 2001, several new monitoring projects began at Sagehen, including precipitation monitoring by Arlen Huggins of DRI, the installation of an NADP site, and a new weather tower and additional hydrological instrumentation by Doug Boyle of DRI.
In conjunction with these projects, we relocated the weather station to the more open and spacious East Meadow, approximately 200 yards east of the old site (39°25.893' N 120°14.393' W; elevation: 6335 feet).
There is one year of overlapping comparison data for the sites.
Precipitation Gauging...
The
historic precipitation gauge at Sagehen was an unreliable tilt-bucket type. For
more accurate data, Sagehen also collected and contributed manual precipitation
readings to the National Weather Service Cooperative Station Observations program .
To provide ground-truthing for cloud seeding operations and regional Doppler radar readings, Arlen Huggins of DRI installed a GEONOR precipitation gauge at Sagehen next to the historic weather station. In order to get overlapping data, we recorded precipitation from both gauges starting in the fall of 2001 (when the GEONOR was first installed) until October 29, 2002.
On that date, we removed our crappy old tilt-bucket gauge and made the GEONOR our only precip. We also moved the gauge to a more open area in the meadow near the NADP site. For the indicated period of time, the GEONOR was recorded as "#2 rain gauge" and the old gauge continued to be "precip" in the data record. From 10-29-02 to the present, the "precip" record is from the GEONOR.
If you
need the complete data record for the GEONOR, try hunting around the records for
the "#2 rain gauge" data .
If you have trouble finding it or need older, archived data, contact Arlen Huggins
at DRI: huggins@dri.edu
We also collected manual precip for the overlap period and found that the GEONOR was right on. Jeff actually felt that it was probably a bit more accurate than his manual measurements, even though he was quite careful. The station has the manual records available if you need them.
Other Weather Data Sources...
There are several other remote weather data sources in the Sagehen Creek Basin including 4 additional towers with basic weather monitoring & ground moisture sensing installed temporarily in 2002 and permanently in 2003. These sites are located at various altitudes. You can download a spreadsheet listing all network & sensing components in the Sagehen basin.
There is also an NRCS SNOTEL site at the top of the basin ridgeline, and another on the shore of Independence Lake in the next basin over. See our "Resources" page for links to this data.