by DRONELIFE Staff Author Ian J. McNab
The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association’s (NOAA) National Weather Service recently announced a brand new 2-year research partnership with North Dakota-based GrandSky Airfield Operations to make use of drones and other UAV assets to assist in weather forecasting. This Cooperative Research and Deployment Agreement will happen at GrandSky’s airfield in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and can involve operations at around 16,900 feet of elevation.
“Additional observations within the atmospheric boundary layer, at many vertical points above Earth’s surface, are key to improving the skill of National Weather Service forecasts and warnings,” said Curtis Marshall, Ph.D., Lead for the Business Data Program at NOAA’s National Weather Service. “We’re exploring industrial sources to enhance our observing systems footprint and thru this partnership, we hope to leverage a brand new method to gather the observations we want.”
This project will leverage Swiss-based weather drone company Meteomatic’s Meteodrone, which shall be operated by GrandSky at their facility. The Meteodrone is designed to fill the opening in between space-based satellites, weather planes and balloons (which operate at higher altitudes within the atmosphere) and ground-based weather remark assets to offer an unprecedented level of remark in real time where much of the weather actually happens.
The Meteodrone will collect information like atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind conditions and ice accumulation so as to get a greater view of fixing weather conditions, which is increasingly essential because the number of great weather events goes up year-over-year as a response to climate change. Utah-based weather data company Synoptic will handle the collected data and switch it over to the weather service, with the goal of building the efficacy of the Meteodrones and inform future weather-observation technology acquisition.
“As the primary large scale industrial UAS test park within the nation, we’re committed to providing our aircrews with probably the most accurate weather information possible,” said Tom Swoyer, President of GrandSKY. “We’re excited to expand our partnerships to proceed researching how UAS enabled weather collection tools can contribute to subtle weather awareness across the National Airspace Systems.”
“Synoptic is proud to take part in this cooperative research agreement studying the worth of additional lower and middle atmosphere vertical data acquired via Meteodrones to weather forecasting,” said Elizabeth Wilson, Director of Weather Programs at Synoptic. “As the first data repository for this effort, Synoptic shall be storing and delivering these high-quality, low latency data to the National Weather Service in near real time, allowing for a more practical and centralized process for data validation. We’re looking forward to the outcomes and are excited to be on the forefront of those efforts.”
“Meteodrones significantly enhance the accuracy of weather forecasts by filling critical remark gaps within the lower and mid atmospheric boundary layer, offering precise, high-resolution data that revolutionizes our ability to predict severe local weather phenomena. Thus, we’re very excited to be a part of this forward looking project and to work with great partners on the longer term of advanced weather forecasting,” says Martin Fengler, CEO and Founding father of Meteomatics.
More information on GrandSky is on the market here.