Rainfall, but not shovels
"It's going to pour with rain! Quick, let's get into the field!!". This unlikely phrase is now one I hear more often, because my PhD is about rainfall! I'm reminded of Eric Olthwait from Michael Palin and Terry Jones' series of Ripping Yarns. Eric Olthwait is interested only in rainfall, shovels and black pudding and bores his friends and family to death. I'm glad to report that my similarity with Eric ends with my interest in precipitation; I have no interest whatsoever in shovels and black pudding. Therefore the venn diagram of my interests and Eric's has only the one element in common. And for good reason, because rainfall is super interesting! My PhD will be about the space-time dynamics of precipitation at local scales, which has implications for, among other things, how radar is used to detect rain. As such it will involve using many data collected in the field.
The "mobile office" view.
To this end, I've been to the field twice now, and thankfully it's rained both times. The second time it even hailed, which was an unexpected bonus. The current field campaign is in Ardèche in Southern France, and due to the timing of my arrival in Switzerland it was already in full swing when I started. My poor colleagues did all the hard work of setting up the instruments - this seems unfair but I think I will be able to make up for it when it's time to dismantle everything and bring it all back to Lausanne. It's been exciting to get out there and see first hand what is going on! So far the fieldwork I've been doing involves making sure that rain events are properly captured by the deployed instruments.
The radar on a fine day.
Jacopo at work on the machine.
I'm learning lots about radar systems, about rain gauges, and about disdrometers that collect information on the sizes of the raindrops. Most of the time the weather is wet, but that's why we're there! In the dry periods we do maintenance work on the instruments. Last time this culminated in my friend and colleague Jacopo and I attempting to shorten an allen key in order to get to a hard to reach bolt on the radar. We attacked the unsuspecting tool with everything we had to hand - pliers, wire clippers, a hammer, and finally a hacksaw. The stubborn key was not going to be broken; it put up with our assault admirably and simply would not break. Defeated by a small right-angled piece of metal, we retreated to the local hardware shop, which was called Monsieur Bricolage (literally "Mr Do-it-yourself"). Monsieur Bricolage provided a two-euro allen key that got the job done, but we weren't finished until 9:30 PM, by which time we were freezing and working by car headlights in the light drizzle.
This is a common view.
But sometimes the weather puts on a show. Double rainbow, all the way!!
The drive from Lausanne to the field site is relatively long, at about 4.5 hours, but it passes through some lovely country; we zoom past Geneva, Annecy, Chambery and Grenoble, all on the excellent (although expensive) French highway system. And even though we purposely go to the field when the weather is bad, we're far from roughing it there. We have a very comfortable cabin to stay in at a local camping ground, internet access is on hand, and the region is very beautiful with plenty of small-town charm. So I am enjoying the field work, and looking forward to getting stuck into the data. I'm also avoiding shovels and black pudding.
The comfortable cabin.
(PS: Although I'm talking vaguely about my work here, it should go without saying that because this is my personal blog, anything I write here is my view only!)