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on february 3rd scientists boarded a

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nasa flight headed straight for a

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snowstorm the kind of weather both

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pilots and passengers typically like to

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avoid but this flight was all in the

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name of science specifically the impacts

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mission or investigation of microphysics

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and precipitation for atlantic coast

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threatening snowstorms

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the team is tracking snowstorms across

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the midwest and eastern united states

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with two aircrafts

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a p3 equipped with multiple instruments

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operated by scientists and a high

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altitude flying er-2 crewed by one pilot

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they're looking to better understand the

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formation and development of winter

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storms

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so our goal is

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to observe and measure winter storms

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that mostly that happen along the east

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coast of the united states

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this specific flight we are flying over

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a really major winter storm that is

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affecting the midwest and as well as

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tomorrow it's going to go into the

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ultimately what the impacts team learns

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about snowstorms will improve

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meteorological models and our ability to

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use satellite data to predict how much

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snow will fall and where

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for today's flight it's been

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the in-flight team members work in

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conjunction with ground operations

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monitoring changing weather conditions

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and coordinating flight paths with the

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other aircraft

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on this flight the p-3 flew a total of

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eight hours flying the same 200-mile

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stretch of snowstorm three times each at

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a different elevation in order to

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capture data from precipitation as it

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descends

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especially in uh you know turbulent

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clouds and turbulent storms you have

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ice particles that form at certain

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temperatures certain altitudes so right

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now we're actually seeing um a lot of

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plate aggregates

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so we have a lot of uh

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not

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that i'm seeing but mostly just large

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the multi-year impacts campaign is the

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first comprehensive study of snowstorms