Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation in Atlantic Coast Threatening Snowstorms (IMPACTS): The 2020 and 2022 Deployments
The Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation in Atlantic Coast Threatening Snowstorms (IMPACTS) is a NASA-supported field campaign to study snowstorms particularly over the northeastern United States. Snowfall within these winter storms is often organized in banded structures that can vary on multiple scales. The goals of IMPACTS are to characterize the spatial and temporal scale of snowbands, understand the processes controlling the structure and evolution of the bands and apply this knowledge to improving remote sensing and numerical modeling. IMPACTS takes place over three winter seasons, 2020, 2022 and 2023. IMPACTS flies two aircraft: the ER-2 equipped with satellite-simulating remote sensing instruments; and the P-3 equipped with in situ microphysics probes and environmental instrumentation. Stationary and mobile radar facilities and mobile sounding teams round out the observational assets. In this talk, ongoing studies resulting from the first deployment in 2020 will be presented along with a summary of the events sampled and some preliminary results from the deployment in 2022.
