The Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms
(IMPACTS) is a NASA campaign flying a complementary suite of remote sensing and in-situ instruments for three 6-week deployments in 2020-2022 on the ER-2 and P-3 aircraft. IMPACTS addresses three specific objectives, providing observations critical to understanding the mechanisms of snowband formation,
organization, and evolution . IMPACTS will also examine how the microphysical characteristics and likely growth mechanisms of snow particles vary across snowbands.
IMPACTS will improve snowfall remote sensing interpretation and modeling to significantly advance predictive capabilities. IMPACTS addresses the NASA Earth Science Enterprise science goal to study Earth to advance scientific understanding and meet societal needs, and the NASA Weather Focus Area’s research objectiveto “enable improved predictive capability for weather and extreme weather events.” IMPACTS is alsorelevant to the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) and CloudSat missions, and the NationalAcademies recommendation for a designated program focused on clouds, convection, and precipitation.IMPACTS collects data from a “satellite-simulating” ER-2 and in-situ measurements from a cloud penetrating P-3, augmented by ground-based radar and rawinsonde data, multiple NASA and NOAA satellites [including GPM , GOES-16, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)], and computer
simulations. The ER-2 and P-3 provide the flight-altitude and long-endurance capabilities and payload
capacity needed for the combined remote sensing and in-situ measurements