The United States has seen a tale of two extremes this year, with drenching rains in the eastern half of the country and persistent drought in the west. A new visualization of rainfall data collected from space shows the stark contrast between east and west for the first half of 2015. The accumulated precipitation product visualized here begins on Jan. 1, 2015, and runs through July 16, 2015. This visualization shows the heavy rainfall throughout Northern Texas and across Oklahoma as well as the drought in Southern California. Credits: NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio Download...

California's accumulated precipitation “deficit” from 2012 to 2014 shown as a percent change from the 17-year average based on TRMM multi-satellite observations. Credits: NASA/Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio A new NASA study has concluded California accumulated a debt of about 20 inches of precipitation between 2012 and 2015 -- the average amount expected to fall in the state in a single year. The deficit was driven primarily by a lack of air currents moving inland from the Pacific Ocean that are rich in water vapor. In an average year, 20 to 50 percent of California's precipitation...

Three Radars are Better than One Putting three radars on a plane to measure rainfall may seem like overkill. But for the Integrated Precipitation and Hydrology Experiment field campaign in North Carolina recently, more definitely was better. During the field campaign, NASA's ER-2 research aircraft flew out of Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. HIWRAP is under the wing in the black compartment; the Cloud Radar System is under the other wing and is not visible; and the EXRAD radar is in the extended nose cone. Image Credit: NASA / Gerry Heymsfield The three instruments, developed by the High...

NASA's airborne Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel or HS3 mission, will revisit the Atlantic Ocean for the third year in a row. Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Ryan Fitzgibbons Download this video in HD formats from NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio During this year's Atlantic hurricane season, NASA is redoubling its efforts to probe the inner workings of hurricanes and tropical storms with two unmanned Global Hawk aircraft flying over storms and two new space-based missions. NASA's airborne Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel or HS3 mission, will revisit the...

Rain, ice, hail, severe winds, thunderstorms, and heavy fog – the Appalachian Mountains in the southeast United States have it all. On May 1, NASA begins a campaign in western North Carolina to better understand the difficult-to-predict weather patterns of mountain regions. The field campaign serves as ground truth for measurements made by the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's Core Observatory. GPM is an international satellite mission to observe rain and snow around the world. The advanced instruments on the GPM Core Observatory satellite, launched Feb. 27, provide the next...

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory, launched on Feb. 27, 2015, from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan, will help advance our understanding of Earth's water and energy cycles, improve the forecasting of extreme events that cause natural disasters, and extend current capabilities of using satellite precipitation information to directly benefit society. The GPM mission will provide unprecedented data on rain and snowfall. The science instruments on the GPM Core Observatory will provide data that will yield the greatest clarity on rain and snow yet gathered from orbiting...

When asked to picture the shape of raindrops, many of us will imagine water looking like tears that fall from our eyes, or the stretched out drip from a leaky faucet. This popular misconception is often reinforced in weather imagery associated with predictions and forecasts. Raindrops are actually shaped like the top of a hamburger bun, round on the top and flat on the bottom. A new video from the Global Precipitation Measurement mission explains why. This short video explains how a raindrop falls through the atmosphere and why a more accurate look at raindrops can improve estimates of global...

On a Wednesday afternoon in June, a severe storm outbreak spawned huge thunderstorms across Iowa and western Illinois. NASA's Polarimetric precipitation radar was in place to scan the storms as they swept through the region. "It's unbelievable out here," Walt Petersen of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia wrote in an email dispatch from Traer, Iowa. There, two NASA radars were stationed as part of the Iowa Flood Studies field campaign, which Petersen led, for the Global Precipitation Measurement, or GPM, mission. Caption: A cluster of rain gauges and soil moisture sensors deployed in...

Development of low storm clouds in the atmospheric mixing layer over the NPOL and D3R radars on June 12, 2013 at ~12:00 p.m. CDT. Credit: Walt Petersen /NASA . On Wednesday afternoon, June 12, a severe storm outbreak developed and moved across central and eastern Iowa, and then western Illinois, spawning huge thunderstorms and several tornadoes. NASA's Polarimetric (NPOL) precipitation radar, currently deployed in Iowa as part of the Iowa Flood Studies field campaign for the Global Precipitation Measurement mission, rapidly scanned these storms as they moved across the state. NPOL capturing...

By Ellen Gray, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Original www.nasa.gov Feature (published 4/30/13) Ground data now being collected in northeastern Iowa by the Iowa Flood Studies experiment will evaluate how well NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission satellite rainfall data can be used for flood forecasting. GPM is an international satellite mission that will set a new standard for precipitation measurements from space, providing worldwide estimates of precipitation approximately every three hours. The GPM Core Observatory, provided by NASA and mission partner the Japan Aerospace...