Ormand Shelf, by Jason Weingart

Date and Location:
May 15, 2012
Ormond Beach, Florida
Content which is not specifically affiliated with GPM or TRMM, but which is about the Precipitation Measurement Missions in general.
Date and Location:
May 15, 2012
Ormond Beach, Florida
This instrument is a vertical profiler radar that delivers information about structure in the atmospheric column and enables scientists to estimate the vertical distribution of rainfall. At all times of the day, light rainfall is the dominant type of precipitation.
Light rainfall is the most reliable and most frequent form of rainfall in the region, contributing 50 to 60 percent of the total precipitation over a year. Light rain is no less than the lifeline of freshwater resources for the landscape’s ecosystems.
TRMM and GPM rely on active and passive instruments to measure the properties of precipitation from space.
Active radars, such as the TRMM Precipitation Radar, transmit and receive signals reflected back to the radar. The signal returned to the radar receiver (called radar reflectivity) provides a measure of the size and number of rain/snow drops at multiple vertical layers in the cloud (Left figure).