Operator: Ken Howard

Data Archive: Disk 1 0512310145 to 05122311320 ‘051231v1’

Disk 2 0512311330 to 05123111950 ‘051231v2’

15:00 Departed hotel for SMARTR1 deployment site. Darkness, drizzle, and poor visibility resulted in great difficulty finding the SMARTR location. After asking directions at Park Service HQ and a local gas station, arrived at location ~16:00

16:00 – 16:45 When moving SMARTR1 to deployment site following the previous tracks, the truck sank up to the rear axel after transferring five feet. A large construction forklift and 1-inch steel cable was used to extract the radar truck from the mud onto the more solid portion of the parking lot. No apparent damage to under carriage of SMARTR…just lots of mud.

17:00 -17:30 Filled the generator tank. Established radar at deployment location… difficulty in backing into location given uncertainty of roadbed stability. Drizzle and rain continued during the process of extracting and setting up the SMARTR. Abundant mud.

17:53 Initial data collection began. Changed data collection interval to 5 minutes from 10 minutes.

18:45 R with occasional R+. Stratiform with embedded echo NE to SW

19:41 Thunder and R+ at radar. Large strat area with embedded core of greater than 50 dBz.

19:45 First attempt at archiving event using Apple laptop attached to SigMet processor. Continued to receive time out errors during xtrm login. Unfortunately the mouse pad on Apple was diminishing in responsiveness leading to an inability to open an xterm window. After several reboots and resets, the mouse pad was partially responsive but erratic. Continued several more attempts at resets and reboots, at which point the laptop was non useable. Subsequently, switched to different Apple laptop. While I was able to open an xtrem window, I continued to receive time out errors and/or the system would hang. Initially attribute the problem to a SegMet computer unable to keep up with the load given the amount of radar echo being processed. After numerous attempts and configuration changes, I was not successful in accessing the Segmet computer even after a hot restart of the radar and suspended data collection. At this point I begin examining the potential for a bad cable. I switched cables from the Nav computer and again received time out errors. I did a complete cold start to determine if the SegMet system had a hung on the communication port. Same results – time out errors.

21:00 to 03:30 During periods of steady R to R+ attempts were made to trace back the potential problems with cables. Drove to hotel to obtain a new cable. Installed new cable with the same results of time out errors. Gave up and waited for call from Jerry Guynes, P. E. Was told that the cables were crossover cables and the new cable was not compatible.

04:30 Switched to 10-minute intervals to extend the amount of time for event capture given failure to prevent over write of data by watchdog program.

18:30 to 19:30 Attempted to archive products with radar system in non transmit mode again using Nav – failed with time out errors or hangs

19:30 Restarted radar during last precip band overpass. R to R+

19:50 Suspended data collection

Drive to hotel from SMARTR1 was difficult given visibilities of less than ¼ mile due to fog. Three areas along the high way had experienced minor slides of mud and rock resulting in closed lanes and hazardous driving conditions.

Next Day – dried out radar and cables. A reconnected cable to Nav computer and from a cold start was able to login into SegMet computer using new IP address. Archived data that had not been written over.