Canada

GPM IMERG Measures Hurricane Dorian's Rainfall from the Caribbean to Canada

Hurricane Dorian (2019) brought heavy rain to the Caribbean, along the US East Coast, and up to Canada. NASA satellite-based precipitation estimates tracked the storm throughout its lifetime, as shown by the sequence of images below. September 3, 2019: Hurricane Dorian over Grand Bahama and Abaco Islands In the early hours of Tuesday, September 3, Hurricane Dorian had been stationary over the island of Grand Bahama for 18 hours, most of the time as a category 5 hurricane. Storm-total rain accumulation over parts of Grand Bahama and Abaco islands have exceeded 24 inches according to NASA

GPM's Snow Ground Validation Underway

The GPM Cold-season Precipitation Experiment (GCPEx) to measure falling snow is currently underway in Ontario, Canada. The field campaign, which runs from January 17 to February 29, 2012, is designed to improve satellite estimates of falling snow and test ground validation capabilities for GPM. Learn more about GCPEx: Airborne Campaign to Measure Falling Snow (press release) GCPEx Overview GCPEx Campaign Blog Ground Validation Image Gallery GPM on Twitter GPM on Facebook

Laying the Groundwork - First Photos from the Field!

GPM's ground validation scientist, Walt Petersen sent us our first photos from the CARE site in Ontario, Canada. Snow's already on the ground, now we're just waiting for more to fall! The University of Bonn ADMIRARI Radiometer deployed at the CARE site. It measures microwaves that are naturally emitted from Earth's surface to determine water vapor and cloud and liquid water in the air column. Credit: NASA / Walt Petersen The NASA D3R radar deployed at the CARE site. This radar scans the air column for snow falling from the clouds to the ground. It uses two frequencies that together can

Day 1: GCPEx Commences

Today the GPM Cold-weather Precipitation Experiment (GCPEx) officially began, and instead of snow, all that came down from the sky was cold rain. Location of the GCPEx experiment Fortunately Environment Canada's Weather Office says significant snow (and, yes, freezing rain, too) is on the horizon for Southern Ontario, where ground stations instrumented to within an inch of their lives are situated. The main GCPEx ground station is at the Centre for Atmospheric Research Experiments (CARE) in Egbert, Ontario, about 44 miles (70 km) north of Toronto and about 27 miles (44 km) southeast of Lake
Document Description

During the GPM pre-launch period physically-based snowfall retrieval algorithms are in an active phase of development. Further refinement and testing of these emerging algorithms requires the collection of targeted ground-validation datasets in snowing environments. This document describes a field campaign effort designed to provide both new datasets and physical insights related to the snowfall process- especially as they relate to the incorporation of appropriate physics into GPM snowfall retrieval algorithms.