GCPEx

Lake Effect Parking

Over the weekend, GCPEx had its first large lake effect snow, which put 2 inches down at the CARE site. Chris Kidd, Operations Scientist for GCPEx this week, said in an email, "We were feeling rather poorly done-by at CARE due to the lack of snow there. However, we cheered up as we got back to Barrie [12 miles up the road where the GCPEx team is staying]. About 12+ inches here!" Parking lot at the GCPEx team's hotel in Barrie, Ontario. They were very excited to be buried in a foot of snow. Credit: NASA / Chris Kidd Lake effect snow forms when cold winds pick up moisture and energy as they pass

Waiting for Snow

In the CARE operations trailer monitoring weather conditions during the DC-8 flights on 6 February 2012 at approximately 9pm EST. Gail Skofronick-Jackson is the Deputy Project Scientist for GPM at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. She specializes in the remote sensing of snow, and is currently the mission scientist for the campaign at the CARE ground site in Ontario, Canada. She writes to us about a night flight on February 6 and the snow that didn't show. Models showed quickly developing snow from 9-10pm EST tonight (6 Feb 2012). We are at 9:22 and we don't yet see snow in the

Hot Plate Sensor at GCPEx

Close-up of the hot-plate sensor
Image Caption
The Hot Plate sensor provides a measure of the density of the snowflakes by forcing the top and bottom of the plates to be the same (hot) temperature. As snow (or rain) falls on the plate, they cool it.

The sensor reacts by applying voltage to maintain the equal temperatures. The voltage is then converted to Watts (a measure of the power taken to evaporate the precipitation). This power is divided by the heat needed to evaporate one gram of water, thus providing the total grams of water falling on the hot plate. Photo taken 7 February 2012.

GCPEx Ground Instruments

Multiple GCPEx ground instruments at the CARE site.
Image Caption
Three GCPEx precipitation sensors with the Environment Canada building in the background, taken 7 February 2012.

Note the low snow amounts on the ground. Sensors left to right are: ADMIRARI (radiometer; U. Bonn), D3R (radar; NASA), DPR (radar; U. Koln). [This dual-precipitation radar (DRR) is not the same as to be on the GPM spacecraft.] 

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