Retrieval of Snow Water Equivalent by the Precipitation Imaging Package (PIP) in the Northern Great Lakes

Details

• Journal Title:
  Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology
• Personal Author:
  Tokay, Ali ; Lerber, Annakaisa von ; Pettersen, Claire ; Kulie, Mark S. ; Moisseev, Dmitri N. ; Wolff, David B.
• NOAA Program & Office:
  NESDIS (National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service) ; STAR (Center for Satellite Applications and Research)
• Description:
  Performance of the Precipitation Imaging Package (PIP) for estimating the snow water equivalent (SWE) is evaluated through a comparative study with the collocated National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Weather Service snow stake field measurements. The PIP together with a vertically pointing radar, a weighing bucket gauge, and a laser-optical disdrometer was deployed at the NWS Marquette, Michigan, office building for a long-term field study supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Global Precipitation Measurement mission Ground Validation program. The site was also equipped with a weather station. During the 2017/18 winter, the PIP functioned nearly uninterrupted at frigid temperatures accumulating 2345.8 mm of geometric snow depth over a total of 499 h. This long record consists of 30 events, and the PIP-retrieved and snow stake field measured SWE differed less than 15% in every event. Two of the major events with the longest duration and the highest accumulation are examined in detail. The particle mass with a given diameter was much lower during a shallow, colder, uniform lake-effect event than in the deep, less cold, and variable synoptic event. This study demonstrated that the PIP is a robust instrument for operational use, and is reliable for deriving the bulk properties of falling snow.
• Keywords:
  Atmospheric Science Ocean Engineering
• Source:
  Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 39(1), 37-54
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1175/jtech-d-20-0216.1
• ISSN:
  0739-0572 ; 1520-0426
• Format:
  PDF
• Publisher:
  American Meteorological Society
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  Grant no. NA15NES4320001
• Rights Information:
  Other
• Compliance:
  Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:0fc50702dee3586c450e6857f040e8928da54b2d97eb3256387d305b0079d809ce52933b5aba86990e796937be3a647a2f1c6145adc51aeafbcfaded4638aae7
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/64565/noaa_64565_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 3.40 MB ]