Cloud Radar System Data for Atlantic Coast Snowstorms

NASA's Cloud Radar System (CRS) IMPACTS dataset contains calibrated airborne radar measurements from the ER-2 high-altitude research aircraft. Data was collected during the three-year IMPACTS field campaign from January 2020 to February 2023 to study snowstorms over the U.S. Atlantic Coast. The dataset includes radar reflectivity, Doppler velocity, linear depolarization ratio, and normalized radar cross-section estimates stored in HDF-5 format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing radar reflectivity columns to study snowband organization and evolution.
• Using Doppler velocity measurements to examine vertical air motions within winter storms.
• Investigating linear depolarization ratio to classify snow particle types and growth mechanisms.
• Applying normalized radar cross-section data to improve snowfall remote sensing interpretation.
• Correlating multi-year observations from 2020-2023 to model seasonal variability in East Coast snowstorms.

Strengths

• Data spans a three-year field campaign, providing observations across multiple winter seasons (2020-2023).
• Contains four calibrated radar variables: reflectivity, Doppler velocity, linear depolarization ratio, and normalized cross-section.
• Collected from the NASA ER-2 aircraft, offering a high-altitude perspective for detailed storm structure analysis.
• Dataset is hosted on multiple authoritative platforms (NASA Earthdata and Data.gov), indicating its importance and curation.

Limitations

• Specific row counts, file sizes, and detailed column names are not provided across any source.
• License information is inconsistently reported as 'other-license-specified' or 'None' across platforms.
• Data is stored in HDF-5 format, which may require specialized software or libraries for analysis.

Provenance

Source

NASA ER-2 high-altitude research aircraft, Cloud Radar System (CRS), GHRC DAAC.

Collection Method

Airborne radar measurements collected during the IMPACTS field campaign.

Time Range

January 25, - February 28, 2023

Freshness

2026-03-13 18:29:21.469354

Geography

U.S. Atlantic Coast region.