Avalanche Forecasting
Instrumentation for Monitoring Avalanche Conditions
From single stations to large networks, Campbell Scientific's automated weather stations provide real-time weather
and snow depth data to those assessing avalanche potential. Our systems see use in and around ski areas, winter
recreation areas, mountain towns, major highways, and other critical infrastructure.
Long-term, unattended station operation is achieved with low-power use, batteries and solar panels, wireless
data retrieval, and large onboard data storage capacity. Fitted with snow depth sensors or attached to custom
snow condition sensors, our weather stations report snow conditions and meteorological conditions 24 hours a
day, 365 days a year.
Avalanche Forecasting System Benefits
- Stations are customized by choosing from a variety of dataloggers, sensors, and communications options.
- Battery/solar power charging system allows long-term, stand-alone operation.
- Most commercially available sensors can be measured by our dataloggers.
- Stations can perform unattended control based on time or measured parameters.
- Stations are research-grade quality, yet cost-effective.
- Communications options include satellite (Argos, GOES, and others), phone, cellphone, UHF radio, VHF radio, or spread spectrum radio.
- Networks are easily expandable: add new sites or add sensors to existing sites.
- Stations can perform double duty-for instance an avalanche forecasting in the winter can provide valuable fire weather condition data in the summer.
- Dataloggers provide statistical and mathematical processing for on-site data reduction.
Dataloggers for unattended monitoring
Our monitoring stations are based around a programmable datalogger (typically a
CR10X, CR1000 or CR3000)
that measures the sensors, then stores and transmits the data. We designed our dataloggers to provide a high level
of station customization. They have programmable execution intervals, operating temperature ranges down to -55°C,
on-board instructions for commonly used sensors, and adequate input channels to accommodate many different sensor
configurations.
CR1000 and CR10X dataloggers
If needed, channel capacity can be expanded using multiplexers, including a model designed specifically for thermocouples.
Our dataloggers interface directly to most sensors, eliminating external signal conditioning. Powerful on-board instruction
sets allow unattended control decisions based on time or conditional events. For example, peripherals such as heaters or
specialized sensors can be actuated based on temperature, wind speed, solar radiation, or some other measured parameter
or event. These instruction sets contain programmed algorithms that process measurements and output results in the
desired units of measure. Wind vector, wet bulb, histogram, and sample on maxima or minima are all standard to the
datalogger instruction sets.
CR3000
Measurement processing and data storage are programmable, but measurements are typically processed and stored at
hourly and daily intervals (e.g., maxima, minima, averages). True averages can be calculated and stored by the
dataloggers. Conditional outputs can also be processed and stored. For example, data can be stored at faster intervals
based on events such as increased wind speeds or subnormal temperatures.
Sensors
Almost any sensor can be measured by our dataloggers, allowing stations to be
customized for each site. Typical sensors used with our stations include, but are not limited to: relative humidity,
solar radiation, wind speed and direction, air temperature, water temperature, soil temperature, precipitation, snow
depth, barometric pressure, soil moisture, as well as strain gages, accelerometers, pressure transducers, GPS receivers,
linear potentiometers, and many more.
Data Retrieval
We offer multiple communications options for data retrieval, allowing stations to
meet exact needs. Telecommunication options include radio frequency, satellite (Argos, GOES, Inmarsat-C), telephone
(landline, voice-synthesized, cellular), short-haul, and multidrop. On-site options include storage module, laptop
computer, and datalogger keyboard/display. Robust error-checking and low-power use ensure your data arrives
uncorrupted and as scheduled. We can even help you post your data to the Internet.
Software
Our Windows-based software simplifies datalogger programming, data retrieval,
and report generation. The datalogger program can be modified at any time to accommodate different sensor
configurations or new data processing requirements.
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Phone: (780) 454 2505