Waiting for Snow
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 real time ground radar data. The DC-8 is up and flying back and forth, waiting, waiting, waiting for the snow. We aren't sending up the Citation until we see snow on the ground radars.
At 9:45pm we are so bored we are looking at pictures of snow in other parts of Canada and USA. Can we do a snow dance? We still don’t see snow developing in our real time ground radars.
The models said we’d see lake enhanced snow. But if the models/forecasts were correct we wouldn't be out here measuring the snow so we could understand it better (and then model/forecast it better).
We gave up at 10:20pm after only seeing a very small snow event in a region where we are not allowed to fly. Ending DC-8 flight. Never sent up the Citation. We are all :( :( :(
Update February 7:
The CARE site did get snow early the next morning but it was only a dusting, so it was good to send the DC-8 back to it’s hanger in Bangor, Maine.
Below are a few of the ground instruments, eagerly awaiting snow:
Credit: NASA / Gail Skofronick-Jackson
Credit: NASA / Gail Skofronick-Jackson
Credit: NASA / Gail Skofronick-Jackson
Credit: NASA / Gail Skofronick-Jackson