HMT-West 2009 Instrumentation Installed and Operational

All fifteen HMT-West 2009 American River Basin field sites have been installed and are operational as of November 21, 2008. This year's deployment includes a new site at Ward Creek — the seventh precipitation monitoring site to become part of the HMT legacy. This site is part of the Truckee River drainage basin and will measure precipitation, snow depth, temperature, relative humidity, soil moisture, and soil temperature. Also new this year is a 915MHz wind profiling radar, and a newly developed snow level radar at the Colfax site. The snow level radar is a part of the joint CADWR–NOAA–Scripps Enhanced Flood Response and Emergency Preparedness (EFREP) project, and is part of the HMT legacy. Another new installation of interest is an atmospheric river observatory site at Pt. Sur, which will support the Monterey Weather Forecast Office in dealing with debris flows in the Big Sur burn area, as well as to provide valuable data to HMT as storms approach the coast.

Images: (top) Precipitation Montioring Site, (bottom) HMT-West 2009 Basin Map