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Spaceborne Precipitation Radar Ships from Japan to U.S.

By Aries Keck, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Original www.nasa.gov Press Release (published 2/8/12) GREENBELT, Md. – Japanese scientists and engineers have completed construction on a new instrument designed to take 3-D measurements of the shapes, sizes and other physical characteristics of both raindrops and snowflakes. The instrument will be shipped from Japan to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., to be integrated into an upcoming NASA Earth science satellite. Designed and built by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Japan's National Institute of Information

Waiting for Snow

Multiple ground instruments at the CARE site
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.

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