Month: February 2022

by Abby Graf

As the snowstorm headed through New York on February 24, one professor at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York spent the hours leading up to it preparing his students to head right into the storm.

Brian Colle, atmospheric science professor at Stony Brook University, is part of many operations in NASA’s Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms (IMPACTS).

Whether it’s preparing a team to operate radars and mobile trucks, launching weather balloons, or flying in the cockpit of one of two aircraft used in the experiment, Colle’s job deals with the fun of coordinating and communicating, and the heart of the mission: science. IMPACTS aims to understand the precipitation mechanisms within snowstorms. The campaign uses two aircraft, ground-based radars, weather balloons, computer simulations, and airborne instruments to help answer questions about how snowstorms form and develop, and how to better predict them.

“One of my jobs is serving as the liaison between the teams,” said Colle. “We start with a briefing the morning of, then I’m making sure I know the plan of the day. I’m coordinating, sending emails, making sure the radar truck is ready. As the mission goes along, I’m in contact with the teams the whole time, making sure we’re collecting data. The job isn’t finished until the storm is over.”

Using Mobile Radar Trucks at Key Locations to Capture Data 

Colle sent teams of students out midday on February 24 to prepare for the overnight storm. One of the teams operates the mobile radar truck that has a Skyler-2 radar on it, which sends out pulse signals every few seconds to collect observations about the atmosphere from lower altitudes, providing high-resolution data from the large geographic regions it samples. “This is the next generation of radars; [helping us] understand rapid storm evolution,” said Colle.

The truck is also outfitted with a Parsivel instrument, which is a vertically pointed radar that samples the sizes of snowflakes or raindrops, along with a standardized weather instrument package including thermometers, gauges, pressure sensors, and more. Some of the team headed up to the storm hours before it began to find a location with good visibility in all directions. The goal is to have an area where trees and buildings are not blocking the sensing instruments. While collecting data would’ve begun around 1 a.m., internet issues prevented the team from getting the experiment running, but they have collected a great amount of data from past storms. 

Launching Weather Balloons in the Depths of the Storm

Back at Stony Brook University, Colle organized a group of students to launch weather balloons on campus to measure temperature, pressure, and humidity at different altitudes. An instrument package is attached to the balloon and can “communicate” with a computer on the ground, sending data back as the balloon rises in the air.

These balloons are launched from a radar truck, which is also equipped with instruments to measure snowflake characteristics. The team started collecting data hours before the two aircraft reached the storms. The P-3 aircraft flies directly into the storm, with instruments aboard to collect data and images from various altitudes. This gives scientists a deeper look at the microphysical properties of the storm, while the ER-2 aircraft flies at roughly 65,000 feet, capturing data with six remote-sensing instruments from above the clouds. The ER-2 arrived at the storm around 4:30 a.m., but the P-3 faced mechanical issues that delayed its launch until the morning of February 25.

The Full Flight Experience

Though not on the P-3 flight this time around, Colle has had the opportunity to fly in the cockpit of the aircraft a few times the past two months, including the February 17 snowstorm in the Chicago area. This falls under his one of many roles but is one of the reasons he joined this mission early on. Interested in studying snowstorms for years, being in the cockpit of the plane during these storms is a lot of fun for Colle. He’s the mission scientist when on the plane, helping interpret the data collected, modify flight tracks, communicate any changes to the pilots, and helping with coordinating the instruments on the plane to make sure everything is functioning and communicating. 

One of the lessons he’s learned is how the pilots navigate the busy airspaces. In populated areas like Chicago or New York, there are a lot of planes taking off, flying, and landing, requiring the pilots to coordinate where the aircraft is headed. It requires a team effort to figure out how to best orient the aircraft. 

“It’s awesome to be a part of the mission. For many years we didn’t have these opportunities. In the past, I’d take measurements on the ground, collecting snowfall and looking under a microscope at the crystal shapes and habits. Looking at data in real-time, looking out the window, and then interacting with the pilots and hearing what they have to deal with…it’s a continuous science experiment and participating in regions we haven’t sampled before has been very exciting,” said Colle.

As IMPACTS winds down its science experiments this winter, Colle and the rest of the team are looking forward to their opportunities next time around. Winter storms aren’t always the easiest to sample, and the scientists are constantly learning. But the instances in which challenges and difficulties occur only make Colle more confident that the data collected this year will give them better opportunities for improvement next year.

By Abby Graf

Imagine the feeling of flying on an airplane. Smooth sailing, clear skies, not a cloud in sight. It’s a relaxing ride that many take for work or recreational travel. Now imagine flying through clouds, with the turbulence of different intensities. While some sink and hold onto their seats, others view it like a rollercoaster ride with their adrenaline pumping. Christian Nairy and Jennifer Moore know a thing or two about that.

Nairy and Moore, two atmospheric science graduate students at the University of North Dakota, are part of NASA’s Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms (IMPACTS). Their job is to operate probes on one of two aircraft used in the experiments. The P-3 aircraft that houses their airborne office flies directly into the snowstorms, allowing the instruments Nairy and Moore operate to measure snow particles and atmospheric properties within the storm clouds.

IMPACTS is the first comprehensive study of snowstorms in the Northeastern United States in 30 years. The campaign combines satellite data, ground-based radars, weather balloon launches, computer simulations, and airborne instruments to understand snowstorms. The goal is to develop greater comprehension of winter storm formation and development by using several instruments that examine the microphysical characteristics of snow particles at various temperatures and altitudes. The data collected during the multi-year IMPACTS campaign can help advance the future of snowstorm forecasting and predictions.

“If we understand the microphysics of the clouds, what we’re seeing, when we’re seeing them, and how we’re seeing them, it gives scientists in other disciplines a better understanding of what they’re studying,” said Nairy. The IMPACTS experiments will provide robust datasets about winter snowstorms for scientists to analyze and incorporate into their own research.   

Nairy and Moore have spent the last few months based at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, spending their days troubleshooting problems and revamping the nine probes that are on each flight. When a storm is in the forecast, it’s go time. They arrive at the hangar to prepare the probes, computers, and flash drives that will accompany their research in the air. An hour before the plane takes off, they board the P-3 and continue prepping the cloud probes.

All but one of the probes hangs off the tips of the plane’s wings, away from the propellers, each having its own job: taking high-definition photos of ice particles, measuring the total amount of water (both in liquid and ice form),  measuring the size of full and partial snow particles, and sampling shattered particles. These data-collecting tools can sample over 30 million particles in a single eight-hour flight alone.

“The whole point is to measure as much as we can when it comes to particles, concentration, sizes and particle habits,” says Moore. “We want to further our understanding of these storms and why they dump snow over the Northeast.”

Once the plane takes off, the team settles in for eight hours of flying and collecting data. Flying through the clouds isn’t always smooth sailing, though. Sometimes there’s turbulence and sometimes the storm quickly changes from snowflakes one minute to liquid water droplets the next. The transitions are quick, but the technology that captures these changes furthers the researchers’ understanding of how snowstorms work. While much of the flight involves looking at data in real-time, there are downtimes where conversation and collaboration can happen. The team chats with other researchers onboard, cracks jokes, takes notes of what they’re seeing and communicates with the IMPACTS HQ ground team at NASA Wallops.

IMPACTS Principal investigator Lynn McMurdie is on the ground at NASA Wallops as the flights take place. While the planes cruise at 300 mph at various altitudes within the storm, she’s constantly communicating with the teams, directing them to sample certain parts of the storm – like snow bands and when to make in-flight adjustments.

Snow bands are narrow structures in the atmosphere that are created by the storm itself. These banded structures tend to cause heavy snowfall. Not all storms produce these bands, however, and sometimes the bands don’t dump lots of snow, which furthers the importance of understanding just why, how, and when they do or don’t form. 

“We decide where to fly based on forecasts of our storm of interest,” McMurdie shares. “We tend to draw a line or box of where we want to do our sampling, usually going across any banded structures from one side to the other. Going across the snow bands gives us variability in and outside of the band.” 

Sampling snow bands with variability offers researchers’ an improved understanding of how the distribution of snow varies from storm to storm. It’s dependent upon two factors: storm strength and location. There are times when snow bands will drop many inches of snow within a short period of time, but other times when there’s only a light dusting of snow.  Sampling from within and outside of the band, and at different altitudes, helps the team see the whole picture of precipitation and snow production.

“The more data we can get, the better we can predict and understand. It’s so important to try and fly in every storm we possibly can,” Moore says. “[The snow storms] can be really impactful, even if it’s an inch or two. You think you understand them, but then you actually get into the science of it. You learn so much more when you’re actually experiencing it.”

As the eight-hour flight prepares to land, Nairy and Moore’s work isn’t done. As soon as the P-3 touches down, the probes are shut off and covered, the data is downloaded to computers, and a post-flight briefing occurs. The two graduate students update and maintain the probes to ensure they’re ready for their next storm-chasing flight. And then it’s time to call it a day.

by Sofie Bates

Andrew Janiszeski and Troy Zaremba blow up a weather balloon in a dark hotel lobby. The weather was calm last night when they drove into Plymouth, Massachusetts, but this morning a blizzard is raging outside. Snow is piling up in the hotel parking lot, wind gusts are near 70mph, and the power is out – but they have a job to do.

Janiszeski and Zaremba, two graduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, are one of several teams deployed throughout the northeastern United States to launch weather balloons during the approaching snowstorm. While the teams launch weather balloons from the ground, two NASA aircraft will fly overhead to study the storm from a different vantage. The experiments are part of NASA’s multi-year Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Storms (IMPACTS) mission, which is the first comprehensive study of snowstorms across the Eastern United States in 30 years. 

Janiszeski and Zaremba bundle up and step out into the blizzard to prepare for the first balloon launch of the day. They bury a communications antenna in a snowbank next to their van and attach a small device, called a radiosonde, to the balloon with tape and zip ties. If all goes well, the radiosonde will measure the balloon’s position as well as the temperature, pressure and humidity at different altitudes as the balloon rises into the sky. This data will help the scientists understand the atmospheric conditions of the storm and how they change with altitude.

They walk the balloon out of the hotel lobby. Double check that the communications antenna and radiosonde are working. Then they let the balloon go.

“It went fifteen feet up, caught a gust of wind, did a loop, dove down, almost hit a car, rag dolled around a tree, went over a gas station, and popped,” said Janiszeski. They tried again with another balloon. Same thing – pop! Hesitant to sacrifice more balloons to the winds, Janiszeski and Zaremba called the IMPACTS Headquarters team to report that they couldn’t launch.

Meanwhile at IMPACTS Headquarters, based at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility located on the eastern shore of Virginia, scientists monitored the weather and coordinated with the various teams on the ground and in the air. Their goal is to fly the two aircraft – the ER-2 aircraft that flies above the storm clouds and the P-3 aircraft that flies within them – in a stacked formation, one above the other, providing a look at the storm from different perspectives. The team also plans the flights so that the aircraft pass over the teams launching weather balloons and the teams using ground-based radars. 

“We’re trying to coordinate all of the equipment to get a nice cross section of the storm. But the storm doesn’t sit still for us, so sometimes we have to adjust our plans,” said Bob Rauber, Director of School of Earth, Society and Environment at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and one of the assistant flight planners for IMPACTS. There are a lot of factors to consider, though: clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), weather forecasts, where the storm is moving and points of interest in its path, and last-minute changes for the aircraft and ground teams – including problematic weather balloon launches.

By early afternoon the winds had subsided to around 40 mile per hour gusts at the balloon launch site in Plymouth, said Janiszeski, so he and Zaremba decided to attempt another launch. They tied the radiosonde to the weather balloon, adding extra zip ties and duct tape for good measure. Then they walked it out of the hotel lobby, took a breath, and let it go.

As soon as it was released, the balloon was taken by the wind. It flipped once, twice, three times, and Janiszeski’s hope plummeted. But then the balloon righted itself and kept rising, and rising, until it was impossible to see. 

“It was a miracle,” said Janiszeski. “I really thought we were going to get a whopping zero balloons up at the beginning of the day.” But from there on out, the balloon launches were largely successful, he said. The duo got five successful balloon launches before the storm moved away from Plymouth. 

“This was, without the remotest doubt, the most severe conditions we’ve experienced during IMPACTS,” said Janiszeski. “I was getting a little pessimistic, but five radiosondes in a storm like that… We’ll take it as a win.”