Plains Elevated Convection At Night (PECAN) is the second major field campaign for the\u00a0Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) Portable Atmospheric Research Center (SPARC), a specially designed vehicle equipped\u00a0with a suite of ground-based instruments used\u00a0for studying the atmosphere.<\/p>\n
From 1 June-15 July 2015, the SPARC research team\u00a0joins hundreds of other scientists (and myriad instrumentation) from around the country in order to learn\u00a0more\u00a0about elevated\u00a0convection and potentially dangerous thunderstorms that form at night\u00a0 \u2013 common phenomena in the Great Plains, though poorly understood.<\/p>\n
Scientists want to better understand atmospheric conditions that lead to nighttime thunderstorms in order to improve forecasts and public safety. Lessons learned from PECAN may be applied to other regions around the world where similar types of storms develop at night.<\/p>\n
The campaign,\u00a0supported by the NSF, NASA, NOAA, and the U.S. Department of Energy, is the first major coordinated effort of its kind. While PECAN is based out of Hays, Kansas, research teams with mobile units, such as SSEC\u2019s SPARC, will travel with their instruments throughout the region, wherever the nighttime convective weather may take them.<\/p>\n
These photos follow the SPARC and its crew\u00a0as they\u00a0journey across the Great Plains\u00a0\u2014 at late hours of the night and early morning, and in hard-to-predict\u00a0weather conditions\u00a0\u2014 collecting as much pre-convective data as possible.<\/p>\n\n\t\n\t