News Stories

March 2004: E-mail Newsletter Subscription now Available

YES is pleased to offer an e-mail newsletter to anyone who wishes to subscribe. The newsletter will contain news about Yankee Environmental Systems, specials, and tips to keep your instruments and equipment in good condition. Subscribing is easy- just click here and enter your e-mail address.

November 2003: Yankee Environmental Systems announces the launch of an enhanced technical support website

YES is committed to enhancing the process for requesting and receiving technical support and improving your overall satisfaction. This is why we have launched a new area of our website called YES Support Center. Registered users are now able to browse and search a knowledgebase, and can submit a support request. Support requests are saved in each user's account and the user can view the status or re-open them if necessary. Click here to register now!

October 2003: NCAR Selects Yankee Environmental Systems as the exclusive manufacturer of the Hotplate

Yankee has been awarded a manufacturing license for hotplate precipitation gauge technology originally developed and patented by The National Center for Atmospheric Research of Boulder, CO and the Desert Research Institute of Reno, NV. This rugged meteorological sensor can measure precipitation rates in real time with no moving parts. It works by electronically maintaining the temperature of two back-to-back round plates at a constant temperature above ambient and measuring the difference of the power required to hold them at this temperature. Falling precipitation cools the upward facing plate more, while wind cools both plates evenly

Important applications include surface precipitation meteorology and deicing operations that require knowledge of the thermodynamic state of current atmospheric wet precipitation. YES has begun accepting orders for its Model TPS-3100 Total Precipitation Sensor while verification testing in NCAR wind tunnels continues in parallel. Browse the YES Hotplate Product Announcement or the Data Sheet.

Read how this new technology can increase safety in rain and snow. Click here.

Official press release links: http://www.ucar.edu/communications/newsreleases/2003/hotplate.html

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-10/ncfa-ntc100903.php

May 2003: Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) awards YES a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grant

NOAA has awarded YES a Phase I SBIR grant to develop "Dropsondes Using Innovative Integrated Fabrication Technologies". Dropsondes deployed from either aircraft or balloons remain a key tool for observing the atmospheric state with high vertical resolution. They are used in both weather research and operational forecasting, having become an integral part of the National Weather Service (NWS) winter storms observation program and NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) short term severe weather forecasting efforts.

December 2002: Fox 25 TV in Boston story on Meteorological Emergency Response Vehicle

As part of their "How Weather Works" series and Homeland Security feature, meteorologist Kevin Lemanowicz of Fox 25 TV in Boston interviewed YES meteorologist Bill Bauman about the "MERV". Check out the video here:

Promo for the story		Full story

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June 2002: Department of Energy (DOE) awards YES 2 Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grants

The DOE has awarded YES 2 Phase I SBIR grants. The first step is to develop a novel constant-chopper scanning radiometer and the second is to develop a solid-state irradiance calibrator for field use. Award of these projects by DOE continues to prove YES's expertise as a world leader in radiometry.

May 2002: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) awards YES Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grant

NOAA has awarded YES a Phase I SBIR grant to develop an automated sonde-launching system adaptable to use on shipboard and land-based platforms. To accommodate a variety of field applications, the system will combine mobility with ease of installation, operations, and maintenance. This award will enable YES to continue to expand into the operational upper air meteorological market.

February 2002: YES working with Space Data Corporation (SDC) on Auto Launcher

We're currently working on developing our Automated Radiosonde Launcher to support SDC's efforts to provide a "wireless network in the sky". Click here to read more about SDC's plans to provide fill gaps in wireless coverage by attaching repeaters to weather balloons. Click here to read more about our Automated Radiosonde Launcher (ARL).

January 2002: YES Introduces New Line of Hygrometers

We've expanded our hygrometry line with several new options to provide more customer flexibility. Of particular note is an expanded OEM line of products utilizing DSP technology. All the products can be seen here.

October 2001: Two Meteorologists Welcomed Aboard at YES

Two former US Air Force officers joined YES this fall after 20-year careers as meteorologists with Air Force Weather. Both retired Lieutenant Colonels, Dave Sautter and Bill Bauman bring a wealth of experience from the Federal Government and Department of Defense to YES.

July 2001: New UVRSS-1024 installed at Table Mountain, Colorado

Visit the Table Mountain UVRSS-1024 here.

April 2001: U.S. Department of Energy deems TSI-880 a "Standard ARM Instrument"

At its spring science team meeting, DOE researchers officially made the TSI-880 a standard ARM instrument. This means DOE will budget for maintenance and support of the TSI-880 into the future. What is politically significant here is that the TSI had to first demonstrate it could augment the far more expensive Whole Sky Imagers that ARM owns. It did this throughout 2000 by demonstrating excellent up time and reliability.

In addition to the TSI-880 operating at the CART site, the DOE has three additional YES TSI-880 sky imagers for its other Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) sites in the Tropical Western Pacific and North Slope of Alaska. YES has a long association with supporting ARM science goals - for more information about ARM, visit www.arm.gov.

March 2001: Massachusetts Technology Collaborative selects YES for SBIR Commercialization Success Award

Based on its commercial success with the Total Sky Imager family, under a competitive selection process MTC singled YES out from many other Massachusetts high tech companies for this SBIR award. The TSI family grew out of a 1996 USDA SBIR program grant. The TSI has been adopted by several US government and international agencies. In the US, the FAA, NOAA, US Navy and DOE have each ordered TSI-880's for various applications. Over the past decade YES has received four Phase II awards from the USDA. The company's highly successful UVMFR-7 instrument also grew out of one of these programs and now forms the cornerstone of the US governments' UV-B Monitoring program.

February 2001: YES Wins ARL Meteorology SBIR

The DoD has awarded YES a Phase I SBIR R&D program to develop an advanced networked meteorological system for the US Armed Services. This technology will help modernize surface observations by utilizing the internet as a mechanism to move data. In the 1960's, while at Cambridge Systems Inc. (now Edgetech) founders of YES designed the TMQ/22 Tactical Measuring set for the US Army. The TMQ/22 and other later TMQ systems have been used for many years. YES is working in cooperation with researchers at White Sands Missile Range and Virginia Tech on this project.

January 2001: YES Presents Five Papers at the AMS Annual Meeting

In addition to showing off its new booth, YES engineers presented five instrumentation papers at the 81^st annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Albuquerque, New Mexico in January 2001. The topics of the papers represented current research programs underway at YES:

Comparison of Two Imager-Based Methods for Determination of Winds Aloft
A Pyroelectric Detector-Based Nulling Infrared Radiometer
An Isothermal Pyranometer Incorporating Detection and Elimination of Error Due to Dome Radiation
Flight Test Results of a Low-Cost Balloon-Borne Chilled Mirror Hygrometer
A New Fiber Optic-Based Approach to Meteorological Instrumentation

The first three were also talks at the meeting (order "11th Meteorological Observations" proceedings from AMS).

Come visit YES at booth #108 at next year's 2002 AMS meeting.

October 2000: U.S. Department of Energy orders RSS-1024 and additional TSI-880s for ARM Sites

After several years of testing prototype versions of the visible rotating shadowband spectroradiometer (RSS), developed jointly by YES engineers and scientists at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center (ASRC) in Albany, New York, the U.S. DOE has ordered a commercial RSS-1024 for its Southern Great Plains Clouds and Radiation Testbed site in northeastern Oklahoma.

In addition to the TSI-880 operating at the CART site, the DOE has also ordered three additional YES TSI-880 sky imagers for its other Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) sites in the Tropical Western Pacific and North Slope of Alaska. YES has a long association with supporting ARM science goals - for more information about ARM, visit www.arm.gov.

October 2000: YES on the Cover of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

A photo on the cover of October’s Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society shows a TSI-440 at a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) Surface Radiation (SURFRAD) site in Desert Rock, Nevada. That issue includes an comprehensive article on the SURFRAD network, which also operates YES Ultraviolet Pyranometers (Model UVB-1) and Multifilter Rotating Shadowband Radiometers (Model MFR-7). For more information on SURFRAD, click on the image below:

SURFRAD site at Desert Rock, Nevada, USA as seen on the October 2000 cover of BAMS

October 2000: New Winds Aloft Algorithms for TSI-880

An ongoing experiment at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center/National Weather Service office in Albany, New York is attempting to derive winds aloft using YES Total Sky Imagers. YES has installed two TSI-880s: one co-located with a Vaisala Model CT25K ceilometer (owned by ASRC); the second TSI-880 a mile away. All three instruments are networked to a central YESDAQ database. Click on yesdaq2.asrc.cestm.albany.edu for data collected by these instruments. By comparing images from the two TSI-880s located a mile apart, YES engineers are working on algorithms to derive winds aloft or wind speed. YES is comparing the results of using two TSI-880s versus one TSI-880 with ASRC's ceilometer. YES is also trying to calculate cloud height using two TSI-880s, a much more difficult task. YES presented a paper at the 81^st annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Albuquerque, New Mexico in January 2001 (see below).

October 2000: YES Demonstrates TSI-880 and MET-2010 at Several Meetings This Fall

YES engineers have attended several meetings this fall to demonstrate the company’s latest products: the Total Sky Imager Model TSI-880 and the Meteorological Thermohygrometer Model MET-2010. Some of the meetings included the National Weather Service, Air and Waste Management, and the Nuclear Meteorological User’s Group. If you didn’t get a chance to see us at one of these meetings, look for us at the 81^st annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Albuquerque, New Mexico in January 2001, Booth #940.

May 2000: YES Wins Ship Meteorology SBIR

NOAA has awarded a Phase I SBIR R&D award to YES to develop shipboard weather sensor systems. This technology will modernize the "volunteer observations from ships" (VOS) program that gathers critically needed weather data from merchant marine vessels. YES is working in cooperation with researchers at Woods Hole observatory on this project.

May 2000: YES Wins Acid Rain SBIR

NOAA has awarded a Phase I SBIR R&D award to YES to improve precipitation collection systems for monitoring acid rain. The US government has been collecting rain water from nearly 200 sites across the country as part of its multi-agency acid rain monitoring program, the National Acid Deposition Program (NADP). For the past 25 years, NADP has not updated their rainwater collection systems. This SBIR involves designing new collection systems that can potentially be scalable to handle multiple vessels in support of new studies on mercury. YES is working with scientists at Colorado State University/Fort Collins' Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory and also researchers at Penn State University on this project.

April 2000: YES Wins Fiber Met Sensor SBIR

The US Navy has awarded a Phase I SBIR R&D award to YES to develop all-optical meteorological weather sensors, in partnership with Virginia Tech's Fiber Electro Optical Research Center (FEROC). The US Navy has awarded YES a six month $70,000 R&D SBIR contract to develop fiberoptic meteorological sensors that can potentially measure winds, temperature, pressure and humidity. The US Navy is particularly interested in the fiber optic sensor technology because it potentially eliminates corrosion, EMI, and EMP problems that warships must endure.

November 1998: Spain chooses YES UVB-1 for its UV monitoring network

After a very competitive selection process, the Spain has selected YES broadband pyranometers for its country-wide UV monitoring program. Similar to the YES UVB-1 network in Greece and the US, up to 18 stations will be outfitted with these instruments across Spain to keep the public informed of UV levels.