Met mast configuration and choice of sensors in cold climate conditions

The installation and maintenance of broken sensors, in cold climate are significantly complicated. This study aims to serve as guide of best practices for increasing life-cycle, operational availability and data quality of sensors specifically in cold climates. The cold climate affects specifically the performance of the sensors. This makes very difficult the operation of met mast in cold climate and transforms it into a real challenge. Also, the cold climate induces various meteorological conditions: icing, low-temperature. The icing accumulation generates ice throw. These ice throw can break the sensors, and reduce the data availability. As well, icing events cause the degradation of the quality of measurement values. In this study, we focus about the causes of the sensor malfunctioning and the characteristics of each sensor. At the end, this study recommends met mast configuration and choice of sensors to increase their life-cycle and data availability in cold climate.