• While Stormtrack has discontinued its hosting of SpotterNetwork support on the forums, keep in mind that support for SpotterNetwork issues is available by emailing [email protected].

Research Instruments

  • Thread starter Thread starter MesoTrackOhio
  • Start date Start date
MesoTrackOhio said:
I am starting to get into research chasing and I am looking for some good instruments.Right now I got a MesoNet on my roof with the PVC S bend which encloses a Thermometer,Barometer,etc and a pole that holds my Aneometer.The instruments I used are from Lacrosse Technolagy 2310 weatrher station. http://www.lacrossetechnology.com/2310twc/index.php I also have a Vortex Aneometer ,and LAcrosse Technolagy 1510 http://www.lacrossetechnology.com/1510twc/index.php
Click to expand...

Meso, who are you doing research for? If you are doing research for a university or other entity they should provide the gear. If not, you really should concentrate on learning the fundamentals of chasing and forecasting before attempting to do new research. I guarantee it will be easier to build upon what is already known than to start fresh and make new 'discoveries' only to find almost everyone out in the field already knew that. I'm a new chaser also and keep making new discoveries, right here on Stormtrack and talking to other chasers. There's a wealth of knowledge and experience right here, all you need to do is peruse the Weather and Chasing, Educational, Forecasting, and Storm Reports boards. I know I find something new in those forums that help me on a daily basis.
 
*Sigh* I can't believe I'm bothering to reply to the first post. First of all, the user's name is against the forum rules, and I'm pretty sure I've seen this exact user post here a few months ago (and subsequently was suspended then, too). Plus, if this person/entity is serious about research, then he/she/they would have to know that LaCrosse Technology-grade equipment is far below serious research quality instrumentation.
 
Rather than berate you on your choice of instruments, let me offer some constructive criticism. As Wes alluded to, there are a plethora of threads on equipment discussions that will cover just about anything you can imagine asking. The one major thing you have to seriously ask yourself is what are you doing this for?

If you want stuff on your car to look pretty and let other people know you are a chaser (which is fine), then don't spend that much time or money on equipment, but don't go around CLAIMING to be doing scientific research.

If you want stuff on your car that actually works and will tell you the temperature, pressure, winds, ect. to a reasonable amount of accuracy, but are only using it for your own edification, then spend a little more money, maybe buy one of the systems that contains all the sensors. They don't work that well and have a ton of problems with them, but for just knowing roughly what the temperature is doing or the fact that the wind just changed direction they'll work ok.

If you're serious about research, prepare to be spending some big bucks and a major portion of your time. Research quality anemometers alone run about $1000 so the equipment costs will jump pretty quickly. As an example, the NSSL mobile mesonet instrument racks run in the $10-15,000 range. Aside from the tremendous monetary costs, there is also a lot of time involved. Doing research with instruments is more than just buying the most accurate instrument and magnet mounting it to your car roof, there are a multitude of factors that one must consider to ensure quality data. The "S" shaped tube for example that a lot of researchers use has a lot of problems that make it a potentially bad system to use to house temperature sensors. NSSL has used this system in the past but will be using a newly designed system in the future. I could go on for DAYS about proper equipment use, but if your that serious about it we can talk more privately.

Main point: figure out what you REALLY want to do before you start buying equipment.
 
Perhaps directed more at Jeff, Sean, and other academic researchers... it has long seemed to me that a useful research subject itself is how one can develop a fine-grained useful dataset from a cloud of instrumentation of varying accuracy.

The short form is that I think a lot can be done by post-processing multiple datasets from mobile instruments that are comprised of precise time and location (available from gps) together with observations of uncertain quality.
 
Dave, you are correct. A lot can be done to a data set through the magic of post-processing. Instrument bias can be correct, turbulence can be averaged out. In truth, all data goes through some sort of post-processing where data is typically smoothed out and suspicious periods are marked for questionable analysis.

That being said, there is no way to correct for instruments that simply fail to respond to a change or respond incorrectly. Instrument's that have aspiration problems, inadequate ventilation, poor instrument design, poor instrument mounting location, slow time constants, ect simply cannot be corrected after the fact. Does this mean that they are worthless instruments, no, but they will not provide research quality data and they may/will have periods where they do not work as intended. So a poor choice in instrumentation cannot be corrected after the fact. You get what you give. The more time you put in and the more money you spend, the better the data will be.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top