Menapia attends the UAS Weather Technology Forum in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Between 16–18 August 2022, Oklahoma State University (OSU) in partnership with the Tulsa Innovation Lab (TIL) held a conference to share the latest on UAS development, innovations and usage in the atmospheric and environmental sciences. Dr. Ben Pickering, Chief Meteorological Officer for Menapia, attended this event, and recounts his experiences here.
At Menapia, we share the vision of UAS technology being implemented to create the so-called “3D Mesonet”. This is the notion that vertically-profiling UAS equipped with meteorological sensors can profile the planetary boundary layer (where most forecast complexity exists) and above at high frequency, which would provide a breadth of additional data for forecasters and for numerical weather prediction (NWP). The technology exists today for a UAS to land, recharge and fly again automatically without human interaction, on hourly timescales, which unlocks the economics of deploying a network of these so-called wxUAS (weather UAS). The resultant observations then have significantly lower costs per-profile whilst providing much greater fidelity over traditional observations.
To enable this vision to become widely adopted, Menapia have developed the MetSprite, a wxUAS built for efficient and cost-effective atmospheric profiling, with wind tolerance greater than 28 m/s and up to 40 minutes of airtime. The MetSprite features meteorological sensing with traceable calibration and has automatic base station support for use on routine, operational deployments.
Attending the UAS Weather Technology Forum only strengthened my resolve that wxUAS are and will continue to provide major benefits to the field of atmospheric research and to operational weather forecasting. The main take-away that I took from the symposium was the sheer breadth of efforts that are being applied to meteorological UAS. There were talks and offline discussions about the full range of topics from engineering challenges, broad research use and also the transition into routine operational use.
The CopterSonde team from OU and NSSL showed several presentations ranging from engineering advancements to end user perspectives. Elizabeth Smith discussed the use of the CopterSonde on the PERiLS campaign which focuses on tornadoes formed by quasi-linear convective systems. The need for wxUAS was emphasised by Elizabeth, stating;
“Research continues to suggest that conditions just above the surface, rather than the surface itself, are critical to hazardous weather prediction”
During PERiLS, three wxUAS sites were deployed ~100 km apart such that vorticity, divergence, advection and deformation could be derived with an approach described in Wagner et al. 2022. Through NOAA, permissions up to 1,500 m AGL were obtained, although the average and maximum flight ceiling during the 17.5 hours of operation were 425 m AGL and 1,000m AGL respectively. Nearly all aborts were due to horizontal winds exceeding 22 m/s, which is expected for the convective storms being targeted by the campaign. The observations continue to be analysed, and improvements to the CopterSonde are being implemented before the 2023 campaign of PERiLS. TRACER is another field campaign that the CopterSonde has been used on, studying cloud-aerosol interactions in deep convection. Gijs de Boer presented some initial case study results of vertical profiles from both CopterSonde and RAAVEN, a fixed-wing wxUAS able to measure particulate matter concentration.
Tony Segales discussed some engineering challenges that were experienced during field campaigns with the CopterSonde thus far, and an improved wind estimator algorithm. A redesigned UAS is in development to address those challenges by adding waterproofing, higher wind tolerance, and simpler maintenance checks. Tony also showed the promising use of a modified UAS being used to calibrate a phased array weather radar. This technique is gaining traction within the community for the many advantages it can offer over traditional calibration, and is something I personally explored in my previous role with the NCAS radar group at Chilbolton Observatory.
Moving towards the operational use of wxUAS, Connor Bruce presented results from surveying 29 operational meteorologists from 4 NWS forecast offices about the impact that routine wxUAS vertical profiles will have. Those surveyed mentioned the enhanced benefit of wxUAS when conditions are borderline to decision-making thresholds such as that of the freezing level reaching the surface in winter. Another quote stated:
“I think this data could significantly benefit my ability to own the mesoscale and provide more accurate forecasting data when it is needed the most”
A retrospective forecasting experiment is underway to determine whether wxUAS change the way operational forecasters issue guidance, and how to best present to them the rich data that wxUAS provide. Steve Piltz, Meteorologist in Charge at the U.S. National Weather Service office in Tulsa, gave some further perspectives from the operational forecasting point-of-view. Steve spoke about the ability to adjust forecast guidance by using wxUAS to validate hi-res models like NSSL’s Warn-on-Forecast System, and that wxUAS reaching 1,500 m AGL was a desirable first-step for the technology to be used operationally. These operational perspectives are encouraging for the potential benefits that wxUAS have when viewed directly by decision-makers.
Brad Guay, of the Swiss company Meteomatics AG, announced that they are working towards a network of 15 wxUAS profilers in Switzerland. This will be an important demonstration of the benefits that a network of wxUAS can provide, particularly when those observations are assimilated into NWP. They have already shown improvements in fog forecasting with a small network of UAS operating overnight, and we are excited to see the results of this larger network deployment. Assimilation of UAS data is an ongoing subject of discussion for UAS to be used operationally. Junkyung Kay from NCAR showed with observations from LAPSE-RATE that accurate observation error estimates are essential to maximise the impact that wxUAS can have on NWP. We are working towards a collaboration with Junkyung and others on new data assimilation experiments over the UK, in a project adding to the published knowledge of the operational benefits that wxUAS have in a different meteorological conditions.
Many other talks were given on novel and interesting topics including: tethered UAS observations, stratospheric-capable fixed-wing UAS, airspace management software, operator–sensor interfaces, wind estimation algorithms, and gas/aerosol sensing with UAS. An interesting open panel took place on the second evening of the symposium, discussing the hopes and expectations for the next five years. Overall, it was encouraging to see all of the innovations taking place across the spectrum of academia and industry, and I would like to applaud and thank those who attended and shared their research.
Finally a big thank you to Jamey Jacob, Alyssa Avery and Gus Azevedo for chairing the symposium, and to Tony Segales who was kind enough to give me a tour of the CopterSonde labs at OU in Norman. I was an exchange student at the School of Meteorology in Norman in 2014/15, so it was wonderful to be back and see Dorothy, D.O.T.3 and TOTO again.
Menapia will be attending the 103rd AMS Annual Meeting in January 2023. I will present research on the flyability of vertically-profiling UAS. I hope to see some familiar faces there and we are excited to contribute to this diverse and ambitious field of wxUAS.
