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Bernt Magnus Steen's second part of "A short history of a pioneer in traveling for establishing a new home" details the journey his family took to their new home and life as a homesteader in the late 1870s near Jasper, Minnesota. Steen begins by first explaining the makeup of the eleven member family which embarked on the 26 day, 350 mile journey. The family left Allamakee County, Iowa, in the spring of 1786 and ended the first day with the party having grown to include three other wagons. After severe thunderstorms on the first night, Steen writes that smoother roads prevailed for 12 days and first 200 miles. On the twelfth day one party left and headed towards Storm Lake, Iowa. Steen writes how the marshy sloughs along the remaining 150 miles slowed the group's progress significantly. He then comments on the heavily milk based diet the family had during the trip. Much of fourth page (labeled as page nine) is devoted to discussing the crisis, caused by the grasshoppers, that affected the Northern Plains in the later half of the 1870s. Steen discusses the government's response and the methods employed to counter the pest. After describing the homestead and how his father met the family's immediate needs, Steen details how their sod house became a post office. Steen then describes how the farm was made ready for and the impacts of fall prairies fires and the winter's snowstorms. He then discusses the organization of the local township of Rose Dell and other community elements (i.e. school district, churches and voting). Before concluding Steen discusses the homesteading spirit and mentions the rapid increase in the number of settlers to the area in 1877. The first section of this brief history can be found at np3.augie.edu under the 30212_B3_F29_A002 identifier., This item is part of the K.K. Steen Collection available at the Center for Western Studies. The collection is composed of two manuscripts written by Bernt Magnus ("Magnus K.") Steen (1863-1940) in 1938. The longer manuscript is divided into two part and recounts the journey Magnus and his father, K. K. Steen, took in 1875 from Allamakee County, Iowa, to Rock County, Minnesota, to find a homestead for the Steen family, and of the family's journey in 1876 to the Minnesota homestead. The other manuscript is a history of a pioneer schoolhouse, Allamakee County, built in 1862 by K. K. Steen and others.

Field experiments were conducted with the AFGL Mesonet and FPS-77 digital radar during snowstorms for evaluation of the use of radar to observe and predict snow. Simultaneous measurements of optical extinction coefficient, radar reflectivity, and snow depth were made, together with determinations of visual range. The measurements verify both the calibration of the visibility instruments and the relationship between visual range and extinction coefficient. A relationship found between extinction coefficient and snowfall rate compares well with relationships found by other investigators. Radar reflectivity is found to be related to extinction coefficient, with the correlation being improved by time averaging and by allowance for velocity of snowflakes from the radar beam to the ground. However, the specification errors are of the order of + or - 42 percent to + or - 65 percent, and with the small spatial and temporal variability of extinction coefficient in snow, the radar is of marginal use where observations are available from the airways network. (Author)