Operations on January 5th, 2011

Transect Team:
The transect team intercepted a lake effect snow band that had formed between New Haven and Fruit Valley. We started out to the west of the band in Fair Haven where the DOW was set up and drove east on route 104. When we reached Fruit Valley the snow started to fall. It quickly became heavier as we continued east towards Oswego. In Oswego, the snow was falling heavily creating very low visibilities. As we left Oswego, the snow became lighter. When we reached New Haven we turned onto route 104B in order to get to the edge of the band. The snow became very light and eventually stopped. We continued driving away from the band for another 5km in order to gather data outside of the band. We eventually turned around in Texas, NY and headed back to Fair Haven to intercept the band again. This time, the snow became very heavy just outside of Oswego. As we drove into Oswego, the snow became lighter. However, as we continued through the city and into campus, the snow became heavy again. It remained moderate as we drove back west into Cayuga county and eventually stopped as we reached Fair Haven. Overall, it was a successful intercept with nearly two and a half hours of data collected.

Downtown Oswego in lake effect snow band.

Meteorological Measurements Team:
Our task for the night was to record air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, and weather conditions every 15 minutes at the DOW (Doppler-on-Wheels) site in Fair Haven, NY.  We recorded 6.5 hours of data from 7:30 PM Wednesday until 2:00 AM Thursday, January 6th.  It began to snow persistently at 10:30 PM Wednesday night, and it was still snowing at 2:00 AM Thursday when operations ended.  The heaviest snow fell around 1:00 AM Thursday, when our location in Fair Haven was in the core of the lake effect band.  Precipitation transitioned back and forth between graupel (hail embryos) and fluffier dendritic snow (snow crystals) several times.  The DOW that is being used in our research is a radar capable of differentiating types of precipitation particles from one another.  Our team also collected snowflake and graupel samples that will help verify what the radar was "seeing".      

Here are pictures from operations on January 5th in Fair Haven, NY:

Graupel snow particles sticking to Senior Keith Jaszka's hand.

Collecting surface conditions.  From L to R: Senior Evan Duffey, Junior Lacey Pitman, Junior Joe Finlon, Senior Keith Jaszka.

Graupel snow particles collecting on Senior Brett Rathbun's car.

Collecting more measurements and playing around in the snow.  From L to R: Senior Brett Rathbun, Senior Evan Duffey, Junior Joe Finlon.

Sounding Team:
The sounding team's main objective was to release multiple rawindesondes throughout the lake effect event.  While we were waiting for the sonde to calibrate we collected snow samples and made observations of the current conditions.  When we were in the middle of the band it was difficult to see the Campus Center from the side doors of Hewitt.  While we took snow samples there were abrupt changes of pellet like snow on the edge of the band to dendritic snowflakes in the center of the band.

Before our launches we measured the wind speed and direction, temperature, and pressure of the surface.  This allowed us to calibrate the sonde to the true surface measurements.  A sonde typically measures temperature, dew point, pressure, altitude, location, wind speed and direction.  Our first launch we released while we were in the heaviest of the snow.  Unfortunately, the wind increased and the sonde hit a window on Hart.  We were unable to retrieve the dew point data.  On our second launch an hour later we did not receive the sonde's latitude or longitude.  Finally, we launched our third rawindsonde around 10:40 when the band went so far south we did not have any snow.  All of the data was retrieved.