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It occurred to me that I haven't shown you any pictures of the TV crew at work. Here is Rich Melnick at the camera, Erica Drezek asking the questions and for this interview she is talking with Jeff Nystuen, one of the TRMM scientists. Jeff is the mastermind behind using an acoustic microphone for measuring droplet sizes. We saw his setup in the big tub of water on the island of Legan on August 20th. Here he is talking about his setup, using the open ocean as a backdrop.

The TV shots are not always so straight forward. Here is Rich at the camera and Jeff on top of an instrument boom on the Ron Brown, the NOAA research vessel that is participating in KWAJEX. Jeff is standing next to a downward-pointing scatterometer. That instrument will be used to measure how the open ocean reflects (or scatters) radar waves-the same sort of radar waves that the TRMM satellite is using to see inside of storms. By measuring the scattering close to the surface, the effects of the atmosphere between satellite and surface are removed. It is a way to remove a lot of variation caused by all the turbulence of the moving air.

I sneaked down to the pier last night to get this picture of the Ron Brown. It is a spectacular sight to see it at the dock all lit up. The instrument boom can be seen here on the right. The big ball on the very top of the Ron Brown (which isn't very well lit in this nighttime view) is one of the radars being used in KWAJEX.

Here is a view of the radar taken from on top of the instrument boom. It is quite open and tall on the top of that boom! The combination of one radar on the Ron Brown and a second radar on Kwajalein allows the researchers to calculate the speed and direction of movement of any clouds that can be seen by both radar. That is a big improvement over just a single radar.

You may notice a lot of other sensors on the Ron Brown. It is indeed a travelling weather station. In addition to the radar, it has temperature and humidity sensors, wind speed and direction sensors, incoming longwave and shortwave radiation sensors, a vertical profiler, and a few others that I didn't recognize! What an asset to have this NOAA ship participating in the experiment. The Ron Brown leaves port tomorrow and will stay at sea until the end of KWAJEX. It stays a medium distance from Kwajalein as it cruises. Those who just got off the ship say that they cannot see Kwajalein itself, but can sometimes see the illumination from Kwajalein on the bottoms of clouds at night.

It was a great day for the aircraft today. All three planes were flying and there was good rain activity just to our north for much of the morning and all afternoon. It was a two-flight day with approximately two hours in the morning and four hours in the afternoon for all three airplanes. That was good news.

The TV crew got some more taping of the aircraft, plus a pretty complete tour of the Ron Brown thanks to Captain Parsons, Chief Scientist Colleen Leary and the whole crew of the Ron Brown. The taping was part of an open house on the Ron Brown where the whole Kwajalein community was invited to come aboard.

At the end of the day, two people from the Ron Brown invited me to go snorkeling with them. This landlubber enjoyed going with some people who know the ocean! My favorite part was being in the midst of thousands of ~1 inch little blue fish. It was like being in the middle of a blue cloud. This particular part of the island has a healthy sea cucumber population. Many were 3 to 4 inches in diameter and up to two feet long and solid black. Impressive, but not particularly attractive.

The sunset however was attractive. There must be something about palm trees that brings out the best in sunsets....

Alan Nelson