An Inexpensive Deployable Acoustic Snow Observing Sensor (IDASOS) Sean Helfrich...

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An Inexpensive Deployable Acoustic

Snow Observing Sensor (IDASOS)

Sean Helfrich (sean.helfrich@noaa.gov)NESDIS Snow and Ice Product Area LeadNational Ice Center

Introduction

What is it:

A low cost instrument designed to over come the requirement of multiple snow observations over an area.

What purpose does it serve:

Snow depth is spatially heterogeneous and proper assessment requires a high spatial sampling rate over a broad area to account for the variability, requiring resources and time from observers. Typical automated snow depth measurements can be cost prohibitive. Cost of instruments often forces observers to limit the number of instruments taking samples. IDASOS hopes to overcome this limitation in automation.

IDASOS Prototype Parts

About $200 for this prototype

IDASOS Site Locations2010

Joe Wright SnoTel vs IDASOSJOE WRIGHT SNOTEL station

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03/08/10 03/13/10 03/18/10 03/23/10 03/28/10 04/02/10 04/07/10 04/12/10 04/17/10

Sensor 4 depth (cm) SNOTEL depth (Judd Communications Snow Depth Sensor) (cm) Sensor 3 snow depth (cm)

CSU site vs IDASOSColorado State University Site

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3/8/2010 3/13/2010 3/18/2010 3/23/2010 3/28/2010 4/2/2010 4/7/2010 4/12/2010

Sensor 1 (cm) CSU Main Campus (Campbell SR-50 ) (cm)

What is next?

Test for wireless transmission (Bluetooth?)

Increase Power - 2011 battery pack lasted 5 months in at 10k feet

Real-time data processing code

Increase samples to 20,000 for datalogger.

Configure in an array to access snow variability for remote sensing calibration

Other utilities?

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