Zac Herring, left, and Tuan Luong launch a drone for some practice flying at the Grand Junction Modeleers Club flying field near the Western Colorado Dragway last week.
Tuan Luong, left, and Zac Herring prep their drone for a test flight at the Grand Junction Modeleers Club flying field near the Western Colorado Dragway last week.
Zac Herring, left, and Tuan Luong prepare a drone for a test flight at the Grand Junction Modeleers Club flying field near the Western Colorado Dragway last week.
Zac Herring, left, and Tuan Luong launch a drone for some practice flying at the Grand Junction Modeleers Club flying field near the Western Colorado Dragway last week.
Tuan Luong hasn’t had a lot of experience with snow in his life, growing up in mostly tropical Vietnam before enrolling at the University of Alabama for its aerospace engineering and mechanics program.
That’s changed in the past two years, however, because of his visits to Grand Mesa — visits that have served as integral snowpack research and drone experimentation for Alabama’s Laboratory for Autonomy, GNC and Estimation Research (LAGER), as well as its Remote Sensing Center, where he is a research assistant.
University of Alabama Remote Sensing Center Research Assistants Zac Herring and Tuan Luong are using frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar on a drone to measure the snowpack in the area surrounding Powderhorn Mountain Resort.
For Nathan Deal's complete story on their study, visit gjsentinel.com
Luong, who’s spent the past few weeks in the Grand Valley with fellow Alabama Remote Sensing Center Research Assistant Zac Herring, said that they’ve been using a frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar on a drone to measure the snowpack in the area surrounding Powderhorn Mountain Resort. They’ve also rented a small plane from Grand Junction-based Twin Otter International to use the radar above other areas of Grand Mesa, such as the area surrounding the Land’s End Observatory as well as the Indian Point Trail area closer to Delta and Cedaredge.
Photos by Scott Crabtree/The Daily Sentinel
Tuan Luong, left, and Zac Herring prep their drone for a test flight at the Grand Junction Modeleers Club flying field near the Western Colorado Dragway last week.
Scott Crabtree
“One of our main goals is to measure objects, such as the snow depths on Grand Mesa, remotely, so we have radar so we don’t have to do direct measurement with people,” Luong said. “We can just fly them on an aircraft like a drone or a fully-manned aircraft to measure what we need to measure.”
Luong said that the purpose of measuring the snowpack is to calculate how much of the snow will eventually run off the mountain into waterways such as the Colorado River in the warmer months of the year. Through the university’s Remote Sensing Center, this data is also shared with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Zac Herring, left, and Tuan Luong launch a drone for some practice flying at the Grand Junction Modeleers Club flying field near the Western Colorado Dragway last week.
Scott Crabtree
“I think the experience is really rewarding,” Luong said. “The work is hard for several reasons like technical challenges and just the environment factor. It’s hard to do manual labor up on the mesa. But in the end, I feel that it’s all really, really rewarding. What we’re doing really matters because we’re helping monitor the water level in the Colorado River and stuff like that.”
The University of Alabama began sending research assistants to measure Grand Mesa snowpack in 2019 and continued the program last year after a two-year hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Luong said the Grand Mesa was chosen as the site for the program because it’s the world’s largest flat-top mountain, meaning there’s no shortage of smooth, high-altitude terrain that makes for easy measuring compared to measuring the snow on the sides of steeper cliffs in the Rocky Mountains.
Zac Herring, left, and Tuan Luong prepare a drone for a test flight at the Grand Junction Modeleers Club flying field near the Western Colorado Dragway last week.
Scott Crabtree
Over the flat terrain atop the mesa — which tops out a more than 11,000 feet in elevation — the FMCW radar measures snowpack by shooting a radar signal beam directly to the ground below and receiving two returning signals. The first signal is through the beam returning to the radar after touching the top layer of snow and the second is through the beam touching the ground and returning to the radar.
Luong and Herring then calculate the difference to determine the snowpack of that location.
Zac Herring, left, and Tuan Luong launch a drone for some practice flying at the Grand Junction Modeleers Club flying field near the Western Colorado Dragway last week.
Scott Crabtree
“Everything sounds simple at first, but then you get into the nitty gritty of it,” Luong said. “Our radar can also measure the internal layers. We can pick out different layers of ice. When new snow falls and ices over, we can also measure that as well.”
Luong won’t return for the program next year, but the program will continue for the University of Alabama’s Remote Sensing Center moving forward. Luong might pass along some advice to his successors on how to hit the ground running in a climate so different from the Deep South’s, as he believes the program had much more success this year than last.
“Last year was my first year doing it, so I learned about operating in the snow,” Luong said. “When setting up a drone, it’s very different setting up everything on the snow instead of the ground in Tuscaloosa. We learned a lot. Last year, it took us several tries to nail down, but this year, every time we’ve been up there, it’s been successful flights.”
