SURFRAD Network: Desert Rock, NV

The Desert Rock SURFRAD station is collocated with the Desert Rock (DRA) operational radiosonde station on the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. This site was formerly an SOLRAD Level-1 station, but was upgraded to full SURFRAD (SOLRAD Level-2) status in March, 1998.

Desert Rock, Nevada
Latitude: 36.62373 degrees North
Longitude: 116.01947 degrees West
Elevation: 1007 meters
Time Zone: Local Time + 8 hours = UTC
Installed: March 1998
SURFRAD data from the Nevada site.
Tracker, platform, tower and TSI at Desert Rock
Solar tracker (foreground), radiometer platform (left), ten-meter tower (rear), and Total Sky Imager (TSI, right) at Desert Rock. (64 kb)
Desert Rock SURFRAD station
The SURFRAD station at Desert Rock, Nevada. From left to right: solar tracker, radiometer platform, Total Sky Imager, and 10-meter tower.
Raising the met tower
Chris Cornwall, Gary Hodges, John Augustine and Dennis Wellman, all from SRRB, raise the ten-meter tower into position. (174 kb)
Finishing touches are added to the radiometer platform
John Augustine, Ray Dennis (ARL/SORD), Gary Hodges and Dennis Wellman add the finishing touches to the radiometer platform. (179 kb)
The met tower
The ten-meter tower at Desert Rock. Instruments are: Vaisala air temperature and relative humidity probe (top left), RM Young wind monitor (top right), Eppley pyrgeometer for measuring upwelling longwave (lower left), and a Spectrosun pyranometer for measuring upwelling visible (lower right). There is also a lightning rod at top center. (102 kb)
The radiometer platform
The main platform. Instruments shown are (left to right): MFRSR, Yankee Environmental Systems UVB-1 Ultraviolet Pyranometer, LI-COR Quantum sensor for photosynthetically active radiation, ventilated Eppley pyrgeometer, ventilated Spectrosun pyranometer, and three other LI-COR detectors (on boom arm at right) for special experiments at the station. (72 kb)
Total Sky Imager
Total Sky Imager (TSI) installed at the Desert Rock site December, 1999. (95 kb)
PSP and sunset
The ventilated Spectrosun Pyranometer, located on the radiometer platform, could be responsible for some of the UFO stories from this region. (76 kb)
TSI glamor shot
The Desert Rock solar tracker at sunset, December, 1999.
Interior of data logger box
An interior view of the data logger box, including (clockwise from upper left) the surge protector with phone switch power supply, the Campbell data logger charging power supply, the Campbell 9600 baud modem, the Campbell CR10 data logger, the Campbell AM416 multiplexer, and the Campbell battery backup. Along the right inside wall of the box, from top to bottom, are the pressure sensor and three LI-COR resistor packs for instruments collecting data for special experiments run by the Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division of the Air Resources Laboratory . (43 kb)