The 2021-2024 Winter Precipitation Ground Validation Field Campaign at The University of Connecticut

Abstract

During three consecutive winter seasons, between December 2021 and April 2024, several ground-based wintry precipitation measurement instruments were deployed at the University of Connecticut’s main campus. The instruments included an assortment of K-band and W-band profiling radars and Ka-Ku band scanning radars, weighing, and tipping bucket pluviometers, laser disdrometers, high-speed and high-resolution cameras for quantitative precipitation measurement, weather stations, and an unmanned aircraft system for environmental variables. The goal of this field campaign is to provide a dataset for validating NASA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) products, and to examine the error characteristics of co-located ground-based instruments. In this manuscript, we present the instrument suite and discuss possible uses of this unique set of measurements for remote sensing applications.