Elsberry has been awarded a grant to support a late entry to STORMFEST observational systems, viz., an upstream "picket fence" of gap-filling rawinsondes and radar wind profilers deployed along the west coast of the U.S. STORMFEST's objectives are to improve the understanding and prediction of mesoscale weather systems over the central U.S. The environmental flow features that trigger some of these sytems form far upstream. Rapidly moving jet streaks and mid-tropospheric short-waves may propagate from the data-sparse east Pacific to the midwest in 24-36 hours. STORMFEST plans include the temporary deployment of drifting buoys and dropsondes from far ranging aircraft over the North Pacific, in a systems test for major STORM field experiments in the next few years. Elsberry suggests that a west-coast picket fence might provide an alternative (in future systems) at much lower cost, or at the least, cheap supplementary observations. The proposed study is essentially a feasibility test of the efficacy of the picket fence in either mode. The "picket-fence" concept is worthy of further exploration, since it represents a low-risk low-cost addition to STOMFEST with potentially high payoff in both basic and applied atmospheric science. In fact, Elsberry's proposal has contributed to a recent decision by the Canadian Environmental Service to double the frequency of its rawinsonde ascents in a northern extension of the picket fence.
