Table 8.1. MDSS Project Visitors to Iowa for the MDSS Demonstration.
Week #
Date
Name
Organization
1
28 December 2003
Open (Holidays)
N/A
2
4 January 2004
Robert Hallowell
LL
3
11 January 2004
Gary Phetteplace
CRREL
4
18 January 2004
Bill Myers
NCAR
5
25 January 2004
Brent Shaw
NOAA/FSL
6
1 February 2004
Darin Meyer
LL
7
8 February 2004
Arnaud Dumont
NCAR
8
15 February 2004
Andy Stern & Ray Murphy
Mitretek & FHWA
9
22 February 2004
Bill Mahoney
NCAR
10
29 February 2004
Open
N/A
11
7 March 2004
Paul Schultz
NOAA/FSL
12
14 March 2004
Goeff Koenig
CRREL
13
22 March 2004
Open
N/A
8.1
Supplemental Data Collection
To augment the weather data collection activities, NCAR installed a suite of weather
sensors at the Ames garage on 17 December 2003. The weather sensors includes a
Geonor snow gauge with an Alter shield, air temperature and dew point sensor, R.M.
Young anemometer, sonic snow depth sensor, and pyranometer. A photo of the Ames
garage site is provided in Appendix C. Several technical problems delayed the
availability of the data. For example, about 7 days after the site was installed, the power
failed to the site. In addition, access to the Iowa DOT network was delayed due to
computer system security concerns. The Geonor gauge also suffered a rare power
conditioner failure. All of the problems were resolved by 9 February 2004.
To reduce the workload of the Iowa DOT staff, GPS/AVL data recording systems were
installed on the 8 snowplows covering the three verification routes. These data were
downloaded after the events and processed by CTRE.
The goal of the data collection process was to capture the evolution of the weather and
road conditions during the life cycle of the winter storm events near the MDSS
demonstration routes. Verification data were obtained and archived from several sources
near the selected MDSS routes
Several data collection methods were used this year including:
a) Automated collection of actual treatments using Iowa DOT maintenance vehicles
recording systems (e.g., GPS/AVL systems)
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