GPM Observes Snow Storm over Kentucky, West Virginia, and North Carolina (Feb. 17, 2015)
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- Visualizations by:
- Kel Elkins
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- Scientific consulting by:
- Dalia B Kirschbaum,
- Gail Skofronick Jackson, and
- George Huffman
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- Produced by:
- Ryan Fitzgibbons
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- Support:
- Laurence Schuler
- View full credits
Animation depicting a snowstorm over Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. A slicing plane reveals the inside of the storm, showing where the precipitation switches from rain (yellow, green, and red) to snow and ice (light blue and purple).
This video is also available on our YouTube channel.
The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Satellite captured a 3-D image of a winter storm on Feb. 17 that left six to 12 inches of snow over much of Kentucky, southwestern West Virginia, and northwestern North Carolina. The shades of blue in the 3-D image indicate rates of snowfall with more intense snowfall shown in darker blue. Underneath where it melts into rain, the most intense rainfall is shown in red. You can see a lot of variation in precipitation types over the Southeastern portion of the United States.
The GPM Core Observatory carries two instruments that show the location and intensity of rain and snow, which defines a crucial part of the storm structure – and how it will behave. The GPM Microwave Imager sees through the tops of clouds to observe how much and where precipitation occurs, and the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar observes precise details of precipitation in 3-dimensions.
GPM data is part of the toolbox of satellite data used by forecasters and scientists to understand how storms behave. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Current and future data sets are available with free registration to users from NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing Center website.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
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Animators
- Kel Elkins (USRA) [Lead]
- Alex Kekesi (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC)
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Writer
- Rani Gran (NASA/GSFC)
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Scientists
- Dalia B Kirschbaum (NASA/GSFC) [Lead]
- Gail Skofronick Jackson (NASA/GSFC) [Lead]
- George Huffman (NASA/GSFC) [Lead]
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Producers
- Ryan Fitzgibbons (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) [Lead]
- Rani Gran (NASA/GSFC)
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Project support
- Laurence Schuler (ADNET Systems, Inc.) [Lead]
- Ian Jones (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Datasets used in this visualization
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GPM Volumetric Precipitation data (Ku)
ID: 830Credit: Data provided by the joint NASA/JAXA GPM mission.
See all pages that use this dataset -
GPM Rain Rates (Surface Precipitation)
ID: 822Credit: Data provided by the joint NASA/JAXA GPM mission.
See all pages that use this dataset -
GOES
ID: 33
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.