PJMT Station Description
Alternate Name(s): Pajarito Mountain
Measurements:
The PJMT tower is over 36 meters tall and is instrumented at two levels. The
tower is actually a cellular phone tower located on top of Pajarito Mountain
near the top of the Aspen Lift at the Pajarito Mountain Ski Hill. This
site provides an "upstream" measurement of ambient wind conditions that can be
used to help predict winds down on the plateau. See
Table 13.4 in the Meteorological
Monitoring Plan for measurement details and in Table 13.3 in the same
document for definitions of variables.
| Data Type |
Record Begins |
Record Ends |
| 15-min data | August 1, 1997 |
(still active) |
| 24-h data | August 1, 1997 |
(still active) |
Site Description:
The Pajarito Mountain peak is an elongated ridge, about 500 meters long that runs NW to SE.
The tower is mounted on the highest point and can be serviced by taking the Aspen ski lift.
Wind instrumentation is located at 36.6 meters up the tower.
Temperature, pressure, relative humidity, and precipitation measurements are made at a height of 2 meters in
the vicinity of the tower. Coniferous trees are in the proximity of the tower and are approximately 20 meters tall,
but because of the downward slope of the terrain, the trees are much lower than the tower.
To the west, generally, the land slopes downward towards the Valle Grande and is mostly void of trees.
To the east, the land drops off rapidly, eventually spilling out to the Pajarito Plateau with the eastern slopes forming the Los Alamos Ski Club area.
The ridge line maintains to the north and to the south where it eventually drops down to the Santa Fe National Forest and Bandelier National Monument.
Location and Elevation:
| Coordinate System |
x |
y |
| NAD 27 State Plane Coordinates (ft) | 457098 |
1777903 |
| UTM, Zone 13 (m) | 374099.94 |
3972050.07 |
| Longitude & Latitude (d, m, s) | 106° 23' 41.3" |
35° 53' 11" |
Station elevation is 10360 ft (3157.7 m) above sea level.
Data Quality:
General Remarks
Nearly all suspect data have been replaced with an asterisk (*). Occasionally
you will see days on which all the 15-min data appear good, but some of the 24-h
summary values are missing. Lightning strikes, momentary power outages, or the
need to reload the datalogger program may be the cause. In these cases, you can
estimate a 24-h value from the 15-min data.
See Section C.1.b and c of the Meteorological Monitoring Plan for
details on sampling and general remarks concerning accuracy.
Qualifying remarks are organized by data type (for example, wind, atmospheric
state, etc.), and we use our standard variable names, as defined in Table 13.3 of the
Meteorological Monitoring Plan.
Wind Variables
No known problems.
Atmospheric State Variables
No known problems.
Precipitation-related Variables
No known problems.
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