When a severe storm swept through the Southern Great Plains area on August 8, power poles along the roads snapped like twigs, but the ARM instruments stood firm. The intense squall line went through about 5:30 p.m. with some very high winds, cutting power to most of the area in north-central Oklahoma, including the SGP Central Facility and the radar sites. Power was restored to the Central Facility at around 9:30 p.m., and Cory Stuart, ARM data system and cyber security manager at Argonne National Laboratory, began remotely resetting the site’s servers that night.

In the morning, operations staff arrived to a whirlwind of downed branches and debris, but a quick survey indicated minimal or no damage to the instruments. Whew! With all hands on deck, data transmissions were restored during the morning, and instruments at the Central Facility were checked and powered up as the day progressed, with full functionality achieved by early afternoon. Just a few days later, all the radars and wind profilers were up and running, even at the Billings site where utility poles were downed.

Hats off to our data system and SGP operations staff! And thanks to Tim Grove for capturing pictures of the storm’s aftermath. You guys rock!