Instruments and Available Internet-Based Data for Documenting Weather Conditions

摘要

It has been previously documented that various weather conditions such as wind direction and speed,cloud cover and, especially, temperature inversions can significantly affect the overpressure generatedby a blast event (Siskind et al, 1980; Oriard, 1999; Siskind, 2000). The overpressure can be magnifieddownwind and reduced upwind; a change in the regular profile of temperature with elevation canmagnify or focus the sound intensity at some distance from the blast event.Contractors and mining operations do not necessarily have the meteorological instrumentation or theexperienced personnel for weather interpretation before blasting events are scheduled. The operation'smanagers and engineers are often forced to make decisions on blast scheduling based on limitedmeteorological information from the site's weather station, if there is one, coupled with experience orjudgment.This presentation is intended to familiarize the audience with resources available on the web (fromNOAA and NWS, amongst others) for weather prediction and assessment and also with some of theinstruments one could acquire to supplement the information from the web. Locations of keymeteorological data acquisition sites will be included along with the procedure to access the sites and anexplanation of the meteorological data being presented on the site. The authors will present a case studyutilizing meteorological data available to the blaster through the web.