The FLOWS automatic weather station network
Summary
Lincoln Laboratory is operating a network of 30 automatic weather stations for the FAA as part of the ongoing FLOWS (FAA-Lincoln Laboratory Operational Weather Studies) Project, which focuses on developing techniques for automated hazardous weather detection in airport terminal areas using NEXRAD-like Doppler weather radars. The stations, designed to measure temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed, wind direction, and precipitation amounts, originally used one of the first commercially available data collection platforms (DCPs) to transmit 5-min averaged data to the GOES satellites. Under FAA sponsorship, Lincoln has procured modern DCPs and has refurbished amd modified the sensors to create a reliable 30 station network capable of transmitting one minute averages of the variables mentioned above, as well as the peak wind speed each minute and some internal diagnostic variables, on a single GOES satellite channel. The complete system is described and some performance results from the FLOWS 1984-1985 Memphis operation are presented.