HPWREN 2023 Overview

12 February 2024


The year 2023 for HPWREN was dominated by weather events including high wind, rain, snow, ice, atmospheric rivers, and tropical storm Hilary. These events resulted in amazing data and images as well as dramatic damage at some of the higher HPWREN mountaintop sites such as Boucher Hill, Cuyamaca Peak, Santiago Peak, and Toro Peak.

January in Southern California was characterized by a series of intense storms, marked by heavy rainfall, strong winds, and snow in higher elevations. The month began with a significant storm on New Year’s Day, bringing over 4 inches of rain in mountain areas and significant snowfall. Subsequent atmospheric rivers and storm systems throughout the month continued to batter the region. These storms caused widespread flooding, particularly near the Fairview burn scar and along the San Diego River, mudslides in Riverside County, and strong wind gusts (reaching up to 79 mph at Toro Peak recorded by the HPWREN sensor). The month concluded with another strong storm, leading to thunderstorms and more precipitation, exacerbating the already serious flooding and snowfall in the region.

February saw a brief respite in early days, but this was followed by a series of powerful weather events. Offshore winds brought gusts over 60 mph in several areas. Mid-month, a series of cold troughs from Canada brought substantial precipitation and dramatic snowfall. The epic snowfall led to emergency conditions in mountain communities, with widespread power outages, structural damage, and residents trapped by the snow. The month ended with another storm causing heavy rainfall, further snow accumulation, and strong winds, adding to the already severe impacts from earlier storms.

Rime ice accumulating on Mt Wilson the Angeles National Forest in Los Angeles County. Photo taken February 28, 2023.

March continued with extreme weather conditions, starting with one of the windiest days in recent years and severe snowfall. One of the results of this storm was an extreme example of rime ice buildup on multiple HPWREN mountaintop towers. The hardest hit site was Cuyamaca Peak.

Rime ice on Cuyamaca Peak in resulting from the same storm in late February. Rime ice was up to 10 feet thick. Photo taken March 3, 2023.

Other HPWREN sites significantly impacted included Monument Peak, Boucher Hill, Santiago Peak, and Toro Peak.

View from Santiago Peak looking towards the San Gabriel Mountains. Photo taken March 2, 2023.

The rest of the month saw a mix of thunderstorms, snowflakes at low elevations, and several more storm systems. These storms brought additional heavy rainfall, leading to flooding and mudslides across various locations. The month ended with another significant storm, featuring thunderstorms and considerable snowfall in mountain areas, exacerbating the already challenging conditions from the previous months' severe weather.

One way to view the extraordinary precipitation of 2023 is found in a time-lapse video that shows the water level changes of Lake Cuyamaca from 16 July 2022 to 28 June 2023. This is based on a single ~noon image per day of a 1920x1080 (HD) subset of one of the HPWREN fixed-view cameras on Cuyamaca Peak.

In April an unusual observation occurred. A significant geomagnetic storm caused the Aurora Borealis to be visible as far south as San Diego on April 23, 2023 and was observable on multiple HPWREN mountaintop sites on north facing cameras. A time lapse was created from once-per-seconds images as seen from HPWREN cameras on Cuyamaca Peak in San Diego County. The aurora was caused by a large solar flare that erupted from the sun on April 22. In this case, the aurora was caused by a coronal mass ejection—a large expulsion of plasma and magnetic field lines from the Sun—on April 21, 2023, according to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. The coronal mass ejection created a “severe” geomagnetic storm, classified as a G4 storm, in Earth’s magnetosphere on April 23.

In Spring 2023, HPWREN completed a significant upgrade at High Point, enhancing its monitoring and communication capabilities. This upgrade involved the installation of four new Mobotix fixed cameras and two new Axis PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) cameras. These additions are available on the ALERTCalifornia website, providing expanded visibility and monitoring capabilities for the region.

High Point after HPWREN rebuild. Photo taken June 7, 2023

Additionally, a meteorological sensor was installed, further augmenting High Point's data collection and environmental monitoring functions. This upgrade plays a crucial role in ensuring redundancy and reliability for nearby locations like Puerta La Cruz and Sky Oaks, by creating alternative paths to the HPWREN network. The High Point upgrade also enhances ASAPNet connectivity to several critical sites, including the FFLA High Point Lookout, Station 52 Warner Springs, Station 59 Sunshine Summit, and various USFS locations such as Dripping Springs, Oak Grove, and Palomar Mountain. These enhancements are crucial for improved communication and monitoring in these areas.

This project, supported by SDG&E, represents a significant advancement in the region's ability to monitor and respond to environmental changes and emergencies, leveraging state-of-the-art technology to ensure safety and preparedness in the face of natural challenges.

Thunderstorm from High Point, August 13, 2023

Hurricane Hilary, a major Category 4 hurricane, significantly impacted Southern California and the northern Baja California Peninsula in mid-August. Initially intensifying rapidly off the west coast of Mexico, Hilary peaked on August 18th, prompting the National Hurricane Center (NHC) to issue its first-ever tropical storm watch, later upgraded to a warning, for parts of Southern California. Although Hilary did not make landfall in Southern California, it struck the northern Baja California Peninsula as a tropical storm on August 20th and maintained its tropical storm status as it crossed into Southern California.

Hilary's impact was marked by strong winds, heavy rainfall, and a noteworthy precipitation distribution. The highest wind gust, 84 mph, was recorded at the HPWREN site at Big Black Mountain in San Diego County. Rainfall varied across regions – coastal and valley areas received 1.5 to 3 inches, deserts experienced 1.5 to 6.5 inches, and mountains saw 1.5 to 13 inches, with Mission Creek recording 13.11 inches. This rainfall was significant, especially in desert areas where some locations received over half their annual average rainfall in just one day. These figures highlight the remarkable impact of Hilary, particularly in areas not typically accustomed to such intense rainfall.

Lightning storm precursor to Hilary, 04:53:38 August 19, 2023, observed from Los Pinos on east facing camera.

Another impact of Hilary was an incredibly intense lighting storm captured on HPWREN cameras. A time lapse about the lightning visible from San Diego mountain tops in the early morning hours of August 19, 2023, between 3:45 and 6:00 on the leading edge of Hilary. It is shown in sequence from four east pointing HPWREN cameras, one each at the SDSU Mount Laguna Observatory, Lyons Peak, Palomar Mountain High Point, and Otay Mountain.

Time lapse views from images acquired by Cuyamaca Peak HPWREN cameras on August 21 of the day after the remnants of tropical cyclone "Hilary" passed over San Diego County. It shows a 360-degree stereo view, best viewed on high resolution Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality equipment. The time period it shows starts at 9:00 and ends at 21:00, as the first 9 hours and the last 3 hours of the day did not show much, due to clouds. At 6,515 feet, Cuyamaca Peak is the second highest mountain in San Diego County, only to be exceeded by 11 feet by Hot Springs Peak.
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One attribute of 2023 was that wildfires were smaller overall and less numerous than have been seen in previous years. The most significant fire in the HPWREN footprint was the Highland Fire in Riverside County on 30 October 2023. A time lapse of the Highland Fire as seen from Palomar Mountain's High Point is available.

Based on the 20th anniversary of the 2003 Cedar Fire, the HPWREN YouTube channel was updated with new timelapse videos. These include a video from West Ramona near Mt. Woodson, capturing the aftermath of the Cedar Fire ignition as it spread from the Cuyamaca Mountains towards Scripps Ranch on October 26, 2023. Another timelapse, taken from a residence on North Peak on the same day, offers a different perspective. Additionally, a video from Mount Woodson shows the concurrent Paradise Fire on October 26, 2003. The channel also features the original HPWREN Cedar Fire video, narrated by CDF Fire Captain Ron Serabia, detailing the fire's progression. These videos provide various viewpoints on the 2003 Cedar Fire and its impact.

Falcon 9 launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base have been documented in several time-lapse videos from San Diego County. A video from April 14, 2023, shows the Falcon 9 launch from Cuyamaca Peak, capturing stages like the rocket's tail visibility, stage separation, and entry burn. Another time-lapse from September 25, 2023, combines high-resolution footage from Cuyamaca Peak and Otay Mountain, detailing the rocket’s flight arch. Additionally, a December 24th launch is captured showcasing the rocket's trajectory in the sky. These videos provide various angles and aspects of the Falcon 9 launches.

Falcon 9 launch on December 24, 2023 viewed from Toro Peak south camera.

Partnership with ALERTCalifornia  

ALERTCalifornia, a program dedicated to wildfire monitoring and research in California, partners with HPWREN to enhance its capabilities in understanding and managing wildfires and other natural disasters across the state's vast and diverse terrain. This partnership is crucial given California's expansive area of over 163,000 square miles, which presents unique challenges for fire management and research. The multidisciplinary team at ALERTCalifornia is based at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Jacobs School of Engineering, Qualcomm Institute, and works closely with various state partners. This partnership underscores the program's commitment to state-specific needs, filling knowledge gaps, and providing actionable data for informed management decisions in the face of natural disasters.

HPWREN plays a dual role in this collaboration. Firstly, it hosts 95 of ALERTCalifornia's Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) cameras, integral to monitoring and data collection. Secondly, HPWREN manages a portion of ALERTCalifornia's networking system, ensuring efficient data transmission and communication.

Awards, grants, and support  

HPWREN funding partners include:

   

HPWREN continues support for SDG&E  back county resource centers providing Internet access. These Community centers are activated as part of the Public Safety Program when power is dropped in the area during red flag warnings. These Community Centers include:

HPWREN Sensor Data Use Cases  

HPWREN enables end users to utilize the image and collected sensor data to create interesting results. Access to HPWREN data archives is outlined at /news/20210318/.  For a history of HPWREN use cases, see this summary Some of the 2023  examples include Palomar Observatory's participation in a test to receive data sent via laser across distances many times as remote as the moon.

Opportunities for hyperspectral camera data show potential for very high data volumes.

Landing on Lyons Peak tower August 18, 2023.

 

ASAPNET and PSAP  

The Advanced Situational Awareness for Public Safety Network (ASAPNet) is a crucial wireless network designed to serve fire stations, particularly in the remote areas of San Diego County. Functioning as an extension of the University of California San Diego's High Performance Wireless Research Network (HPWREN), ASAPNet relies on HPWREN as its foundational wide area network. This network is expansive, encompassing 66 fire station sites and 12 relay sites, all of which originate from 16 mountaintops across San Diego County.

Recently, ASAPNet has focused on enhancing its infrastructure through the Public Safety Access Point Deployment initiative. This upgrade project includes three ASAP sites: Birch Hill, Boucher Hill, and High Point. By upgrading these sites to include Public Safety Access Points, ASAPNet significantly bolsters its capability to provide robust and reliable wireless communication. This is especially vital for emergency services and public safety operations in remote or hard-to-reach areas, ensuring uninterrupted communication and efficient response in critical situations.

HPWREN Operations

In support of the growing ALERTCalifornia community, HPWREN continues to provide high quality Internet connectivity using fixed wide area wireless technology connected to multiple regional Internet gateways at sites in San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and Santa Barbara Counties.   

By the end of 2023, HPWREN was supporting over 400 fixed and PTZ public safety cameras.

HPWREN major field work included:

HPWREN Permitting

HPWREN recently achieved a key milestone in maintaining and expanding its network coverage by successfully renewing and acquiring permits. The renewal with the San Diego County Sheriff Regional Communication System allows continued use of crucial sites at Monument Peak, Volcan South, North Peak, and Cowles Mountain. This renewal is vital for sustaining effective communication and monitoring services in the San Diego area.

In addition, HPWREN has expanded its reach into Riverside County through a new partnership with the Riverside County Sheriff Public Safety Enterprise Communications. This collaboration has resulted in the approval to deploy new HPWREN sites at Margarita, Marion Ridge, Mt. David, Red Mountain, Redondo Mesa, and Santa Rosa. These sites will significantly enhance network coverage and support emergency response capabilities in Riverside County.

Further extending its network, HPWREN has also obtained permission from the San Bernardino National Forest, San Jacinto Ranger District, to establish a new site at Black Mountain Fire Lookout. This site is strategically important for improving situational awareness and environmental monitoring in the San Bernardino National Forest area. The combination of these permit renewals and new deployments underscores HPWREN's commitment to providing robust wireless network support for public safety and research throughout Southern California.

IT Infrastructure Improvements  

An additional backup path to CENIC for the HPWREN network has been completed in Orange County. We have installed microwave equipment at Saddleback Community College in Mission Viejo to use its campus as another off-ramp to the CENIC network from our multi-regional wireless network. See the article "HPWREN adds Saddleback College as a backup CENIC network path".  

HPWREN transitioning  towards Amazon Web Services (AWS) for storage and website support. During 2023 we have complemented our local ZFS and CEPH based storage systems with AWS cloud based storage to improve access, reliability, and capacity while at the same time reducing our staff's storage maintenance activities.  Amazons’ high availability storage coupled with tiered support levels should benefit HPWREN and its user community. After storage stability was achieved, we considered transferring our web maintenance and data publishing workloads to more automated AWS services as well. Proof of concept for this website support  was established by the end of 2023 and we expect to cut over to AWS for production services early in 2024. Thanks to Calit2 for their support and collaborations in this endeavor. 

Looking across the top of Mt. Woodson, where HPWREN utilizes multiple towers for its backbone node. Photo from March 10, 2023

 

Public Outreach  

The many ways we have reached out to the public this year include:  

Research and Development  

Examples of 2023 R&D efforts include the introduction of and experiments with Hyperspectral cameras to their network: /news/20231221/  

HPWREN also supported  the data transmission of videos resulting from NASA experiments with a goal for interplanetary laser based communications, as well as "Cats in Space".  

Anticipated 2024 Activities   

We expect to improve bandwidth to Mount Palomar Observatory (MPO). Currently they have an aggregate capacity of 432 MBit/sec back to HPWREN CENIC connections.   

There are two active MPO links:

  1. MPO-Boucher with 205 Mbit/sec capacity
    • Boucher now connects to SDSC with 1422 Mbit/sec capacity with partial support for the hardware for this link being provided by MPO.
    • Boucher also connects to San Diego Red Mountain with 1422 Mbit/sec capacity.  San Diego Red Mountain has an aggregate of 1173 Mbit/sec capacity spread over three links (Mt Soledad-UCSD, Buffalo Bump-UCI, Santiago-UCI)
  2. MPO-Monument Peak with 227 Mbit capacity
    • Monument Peak currently has an aggregate of 2.2 Gbit/sec capacity spread over three links (Lyons-SDSC, North-Woodson-UCSD, Cuyamaca-SDSC)

We will be adding a new link in 2024 from MPO to Riverside Red Mountain with additional 436 Mbits/sec capacity using funding that supports wildfire observations. Following that,  we plan on adding three more links beyond Riverside Red to allow for routing along that path back to CENIC, hopefully by the end of 2024.  

We also anticipate further site and camera addition in California counties north of San Diego County.

and finally, another thundercloud view, with this one seen north of Toro Peak on August 18, 2023