Winter Hydrometeor Classification Ground Truth Program

Project Status: Active 5 Mar 2008 -- A potentially major winter storm is in the offing, perfectly situated in the project observing area. The event will likely start with rain, then change to sleet, ending finally as snow. There may be a brief period of freezing rain, but only a little. Much more important will be snow amounts. Capturing the change form rian to snow is important, so as soon as the change occurs, please log your observations.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How will I know the project's status?

A: In general, we run the radar and collect data during any kind of event (the radar is used for much more than to simply help us determine whether rain or snow is falling), but this particular project is active only during winter events that will produce snow. We have four levels of activity:

1. Inactive — Nothing is going on and we're not anticipating anything in the foreseeable future.
2. Stay Tuned — No operations are currently planned, but we're watching the weather to see if anything interesting begins to take shape.
3. Activities Planned — We're confident that an interesting event will occur and have planned activity to commence by a given time.
4. Active — An event is underway.

In addition to this, we maintain a brief message about project status on the project web page, so that you may see what our current thinking is about the weather.

Q: The current weather is really interesting, and I need to tell you more about what's happening. Is there a place for comments?

A: If you need to include more information about your observation, you may contact the project by email.

Q: What if I don't have only one kind of precipitation falling, such as rain mixed with snow? How do I enter something like that?

A: Because there are so many possibilities, and because it's sometimes hard to tell what is mixed with what, we have chosen to ignore mixed precipitation. Mixed precipitation is typically brief in duration, so if you notice it, a change in precipitation type is probably underway. Simply choose the predominant precipitation type, and enter that.

Q: I'm outside of your 90 mile radius. Can I still participate?

A: Yes! Observations outside of the 90 mile radius are still useful, so feel free to participate.

Q: Why do I have to re-enter my coordinates each time? Can't you simply remember me?

A: We have intentionally kept the database anonymous, so we don't know who has entered the data. We don't use cookies or other identifying technology, so we have no way of knowing who is making an entry at any given time. However, your web browser likely keeps track of this information and will auto-complete the field for you. To be sure though, you might want to save your coordinates in a small text file saved on your desktop and use "copy" and "paste" if auto-completion doesn't work for you.

Q: I'll be at someone else's house during some of the storm, but I'd still like to enter observations. Is it OK to enter observations from someplace other than my home location?

A: Yes! Any observations we get are useful to us, even those outside of the 90 mile radius.