New mobile NOAA Research fire weather observing facility undergoes testing in Colorado

A new, mobile fire weather observing system that can be quickly deployed to wildfire-prone regions to monitor how weather conditions contribute to fire ignition risk and behavior is undergoing testing and collecting data on a site near Boulder, Colorado.

The mobile system, called “Collaborative Lower Atmospheric Mobile Profiling System” (CLAMPS), is one of several new NOAA fire weather observation systems developed during the past few years. It is a joint project between Air Resources Laboratory (ARL), Global Monitoring Laboratory (GML), Global Systems Laboratory (GSL), and Physical Sciences Laboratory (PSL), and is a key part of NOAA’s larger effort to advance our understanding of the interactions between wildfires and weather.

CLAMPS provides a novel combination of observations from multiple instruments designed to simultaneously observe the surface and lower atmosphere—specifically the boundary layer, where the surface interacts with it—and can be deployed quickly to wildfire-prone regions in the U.S. The data it collects will be used to improve our understanding of how changing conditions in the atmosphere influence fire weather in these areas, and how fires influence the atmosphere.

CLAMPS was originally designed at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) to make boundary layer observations for severe weather applications. After years of successful deployments, a new CLAMPS design was created for fire weather applications. GSL Senior Scientist Dave Turner, who was instrumental in CLAMPS design and buildouts at NSSL (referred to as “CLAMPS-1 and 2”), now leads development of the new CLAMPS fire-weather facilities (“CLAMPS-3 and 4”).

Construction of two new CLAMPS systems began in Boulder in 2024 with the goal of monitoring atmospheric and ground conditions near wildland and prescribed fires, including upwind or downwind of active fires, as well as longer-term characteristics near complex terrain in areas prone to fires. CLAMPS data will complement other observations, including those from new fixed-site observing systems and uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) now under development, to give a better and more comprehensive picture of environments in these scenarios than ever before.

The CLAMPS system is equipped with an array of instruments that were selected by experts at the participating labs. A primary aim is collecting measurements along a vertical profile from the surface upward into the atmosphere. For some of these instruments, CLAMPS utilizes GSL’s Tropospheric Remotely Observed Profiling via Optimal Estimation (TROPoe) software to retrieve the desired profiles from the observed data.

The instruments, several of which are part of ARL’s innovative collapsible, mobile observing tower, installed in CLAMPS include:

• Doppler lidar wind profiler, providing vertical profiles of wind speed and direction, as well as profiles of turbulent mixing
• Infrared spectrometer, providing vertical profiles of temperature and humidity from the surface to 3km, and cloud properties
• Ceilometer, measuring the height of aerosols, smoke, and cloud layers
• Surface radiometers, measuring downward shortwave and longwave radiation, which help observe the impacts of clouds, smoke, and aerosols on the surface radiation budget
• Sonic anemometers and moisture probes, which measure turbulent fluxes of heat, water vapor, carbon dioxide, and momentum
• Surface meteorology sensors, which measure near-surface temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, precipitation amount, and wind speed and direction
• Soil moisture probes, which measure soil moisture at different depths, allowing for a better understanding of the relationship between atmospheric conditions and the evolution of soil properties
• Trace gas and aerosol detectors, measuring concentrations in the air just above the top of the trailer of particulate matter (below 2.5 microns in size), carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide, thereby providing key measures of unhealthy air quality

The instruments will be used to measure conditions that impact, or are impacted by, fires. For example, the surface radiometers, ceilometer, and aerosol detectors help reveal how clouds, smoke and aerosols affect heating at the surface. Changes in the amount of solar energy absorbed by the surface can in turn affect surface weather conditions, which can change the characteristics of vegetation and their likelihood of igniting during fires. Read more about ARL’s collapsible, mobile observing towers here.

The first fire weather CLAMPS system was successfully deployed in late July 2025 at the Marshall Field Site owned by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which is also in Boulder. This site was selected due to its suitability for meeting science objectives and minimal travel costs. The devices communicate measurements in real time to GSL’s data team. Data systems are being established to disseminate it openly through a public website.

CLAMPS is expected to collect observations at this site continuously for at least 60 days, into October. A second trailer-based system will be completed and deployed in 2026. This initial deployment is a crucial proof-of-concept to demonstrate the value of these novel data suites, the agility of this new system design, and the benefit of collaboration between diverse expertise across multiple Labs. 

The data collected from these systems will be communicated in near real-time back to a data hub at NOAA Boulder. It will be shared with fire weather forecasters, firefighters, researchers, and other interested parties on a publicly accessible website. Other datasets that require post processing will be made publicly available at a later time, and all datasets will be archived for future public use and to support research objectives.

During wildfire events, CLAMPS may be positioned upwind and/or downwind of active fires to observe the atmospheric and land-surface conditions that are influencing the fire’s behavior or have been modified by it, increasing our understanding of the interaction between fire and the lower atmosphere. 

The data collected now and in future deployments will be used to evaluate and improve NOAA’s weather prediction models in complex, difficult-to-model terrain and other fire-prone areas. These improved physical forecast models also can be leveraged to advance future, data-driven models that use artificial intelligence to generate forecasts, trained using physical model forecasts.