SOLICITATION NOTICE
A -- NWS ASOS AWPAG - Presolicitation Notice
- Notice Date
- 7/28/2009
- Notice Type
- Presolicitation
- NAICS
- 541990
— All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Weather Service, 1325 East West Highway, SSMC2, Room 11226, Silver Spring, Maryland, 20910, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20910
- Solicitation Number
- NWS-09-1234
- Point of Contact
- Shalisha Harris, Phone: 301-713-3405 x113, Anita R. Middleton, Phone: 301 713 3405 x167
- E-Mail Address
-
SHALISHA.HARRIS@NOAA.GOV, anita.r.middleton@noaa.gov
(SHALISHA.HARRIS@NOAA.GOV, anita.r.middleton@noaa.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- STATEMENT OF WORK The United States Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Weather Service (NWS), Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) Product Improvement Program intends to negotiate on a sole source basis, under authority of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 6.302 Other Than Full and Open Competition with National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) to support collection and analysis of data to develop a transfer algorithm to improve reporting accuracy of the ASOS All Weather Precipitation Accumulation Gauges (AWPAG) during periods of blowing precipitation. This effort will be conducted for approximately one year. The ASOS AWPAG is designed to accurately measure freezing and frozen precipitation in winter, however turbulence effects during high wind events deflect falling hydrometeors, with the greatest effect being on low water content snow particles. This issue can be addressed by adding a wind screen of sufficient size to disburse the effects of blowing wind, however there is a practical limit to the size and resulting cost in installing large and expensive wind shields. The size can be a particular problem at airports where most NWS ASOSs are installed. A more practical approach is to develop a mathematical adjustment to the AWPAG report to account for wind effects. The approach to developing such an algorithm is to install a freestanding production AWPAG in close proximity to an AWPAG which is located inside a Double Fence Intercomparison Reference (DFIR) shield, a large wooden structure that is designed to optimize gauge catch to very close to the true catch. The ratio of AWPAG catch to DFIR catch can be correlated to wind speed and possibly other environmental factors to obtain a transfer function. While NWS has installed DFIRs in its testbed at Sterling, VA and its Winter Test Facility in Johnstown, PA, there is a requirement to collect performance data in a region where dry snows accompanied by strong wind are more common than at these two sites. The vendor must provide a facility having one or more existing DFIRs which meets this climatology requirement, and who has extensive additional precipitation measurement capabilities as well as extensive field test sensor and data acquisition capabilities. This facility must be instrumented such that accurate wind speed and direction, present weather and ambient temperature data is available. The goal of this task is to develop an AWPAG transfer function, a mathematical relationship of the catch ratio of the AWPAG with it's ASOS shield configuration to the catch of a precipitation gauge inside a Double Fence Intercomparison Reference as described in the WMO Report No. 67 (WMO/TD - No. 872,1998) WMO SOLID PRECIPITATION MEASUREMENT INTERCOMPARISON FINAL REPORT by B.E. Goodison and P.Y.T. Louie and D. Yang. Vendors who have a facility containing a DFIR and who believe that they have the ability to perform outdoor exposure testing and data collection with the NWS AWPAG are required to submit in writing an affirmative response demonstrating that they can meet the Government requirements to provide the required testing environment in an area where severe wind-blown precipitation (liquid and solid) are frequently experienced. The response must be sufficient to permit agency analysis to establish bona fide capability to meet the requirements. Failure to submit sufficient documentation will result in the Government proceeding as stated above. A determination by the Government not to open the requirement to competition based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Affirmative written responses must be received no later than 10 days after this publication to this synopsis. The POC is Shalisha Harris, Contract Specialist, Phone 301-713-3405 x 113, Fax (301) 713-1024, email shalisha.harris@noaa.gov.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DOC/NOAA/OCSNWS/NWS-09-1234/listing.html)
- Record
- SN01889853-W 20090730/090728235833-47222a856d909dbee1e0f69003a89b9e (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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