GPM Cold Season Precipitation Experiment (GCPEx)

GCPEx will be conducted over and near the Ontario, Canada/Great Lakes Environment Canada CARE site from January 17 to February 29, 2012. The experiment is designed to measure properties of falling snow for understanding frozen precipitation processes in association with improving and quantifying the detection limits and estimation errors of snowfall retrieval algorithms being developed for GPM. GCPEx will address topics related to satellite algorithm development including assessment of minimum detectable snow rates, discrimination of rain and falling snow, discriminating falling snow from snow-covered land surfaces, microphysical assumptions in the algorithms, spatial heterogeneity of precipitation and its relationship to the aforementioned topics.

More information from the GCPEx Science Plan is available here.

Visit the official GCPEX Portal.

In support of GCPEX validation efforts, several surface-based instruments have been deployed. These include the following:

Instrument Number
APU 10
2DVD 5
Hot Plates 4
Pluvio 400 Gauge 5
Pluvio 200 Gauge 4

In support of GCPEX, a number of precipitation measuring systems have been installed. Web Cam views are linked to from the GCPEX Mission Portal.

Site APU 2DVD Hot Plate Pluvio Cam
CARE APU01, APU02 2dvdsn37 HotPlate Pluvio400
Huronia Airport APU03, APU04 2dvdsn38 HotPlate Pluvio400
Steamshow Fairgrounds APU05, APU06 2dvdsn35 n/a Pluvio400
Sky Dive Site APU07, APU08 2dvdsn36 HotPlate Pluvio400
Bob Morton APU09, APU10 2dvdsn25 n/a n/a n/a

Latest Parsivel Snow Images

These thumbnails provide links to the most recent rain parameter time series. These images are updated hourly and provide time series of: 1) Snow Rate; 2) Reflectivity; 3) Liquid Water Content; 4) Mass-weighted mean diameter; 5) Total # of drops; and 6) drop concentration. Note that to estimate the reflectivity and Liquid Water Content, a bulk-density of ice was assumed as 0.1 g/m^3 or 0.1 of liquid water.

APU01 [CARE] APU02 [CARE] APU03 [Huronia] APU04 [Huronia] APU05 [SteamShow]
APU06 [SteamShow] APU07 [SkyDive] APU08 [SkyDive] APU09 [Morton] APU10 [Morton]

NOTE: Due to inevitable communication and instrument errors, some plots may not be available for a given day.

Latest 2DVD Snow Images

2DVD_SN37 [CARE] 2DVD_SN38 [Huronia] 2DVD_SN35 [SteamShow] 2DVD_SN36 [SkyDive] 2DVD_SN25 [Morton]

Latest Parsivel DSD Images

These thumbnails provide links to the most recent time series of the daily drop size distribution (DSD). Click to enlarge.

APU01 [CARE] APU02 [CARE] APU03 [Huronia] APU04 [Huronia] APU05 [SteamShow]
APU06 [SteamShow] APU07 [SkyDive] APU08 [SkyDive] APU09 [Morton] APU10 [Morton]

Latest 2DVD DSD Images

These thumbnails provide links to the most recent time series of the daily drop size distribution (DSD). Click to enlarge.

2DVD_SN37 [CARE] 2DVD_SN38 [Huronia] 2DVD_SN35 [SteamShow] 2DVD_SN36 [SkyDive] 2DVD_SN25 [Morton]

Latest HotPlate Data Images

These thumbnails provide links to the most recent time series of precipitation rate, wind speed, temperature and relative humidity as observed by HotPlate sensors located at the CARE, Huronia and Sky Dive sites. GCPEX_SkyDive_Latest_HotPlate.png

CARE Huronia SkyDive

Daily Quick Look Snow and DSD Plots (Updated Hourly)

  • Snow Plots:
  • DSD Plots:
  • HotPlate Plots:

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