Description of lidar

The Halo Doppler Lidar is currently operating on the roof of the National Weather Center in Norman, OK. Current data from the lidar can be seen in the quicklook plots below. Wind profile and hodographs will automatically update every 10 minutes, shortly after the VAD scans are completed. Vertical velocity data will update once an hour, at the end of each hour.

If you're interested in getting archived data from the lidar, please contact tim.bonin (at) ou.edu

Above: Vertical velocity and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) from the previous hour. Large SNR values (>5dB) typically indicate clouds.

Above: Wind profile for the last 24 hours. Note that there may be a slight disconnect for each individual profile around 500 m, since two VAD profiles (at 40 and 70 degree elevation each) are combined together which were taken approximately a few minutes apart. This also may appear as an artifact in the hodograph below.

(LEFT) Wind profile for the last 24 hours. Note that there may be a slight disconnect for each individual profile around 500 m, since two VAD profiles (at 40 and 70 degree elevation each) are combined together which were taken approximately a few minutes apart. This also may appear as an artifact in the associated hodograph. (RIGHT) Hodograph from most recent VAD scans. Black astericks with adjacent numbers indicate height above ground level for that measurement in meters. Note that there is a known high bias in the wind speed in the lowest level when SNR is low.