| Nationwide, nearly 7000 deaths, 600,000 injuries, and 1.4 million accidents per year are due to adverse road weather, mostly during winter, and costs associated with a single blizzard can range from $0.1M to $3.0B. Improvement of 0-48 hr cool season quantitative precipitation depends on obtaining a greater understanding of the mesoscale structure and dynamics of cyclonic weather systems. The PLOWS research program is targeted directly at this problem. The field campaign will also provide new insight concerning remote sensing of winter weather systems that can translate directly into better operational interpretation and observation strategies of winter weather mesoscale features. Furthermore, the study will provide a unique dataset which can be used to interpret data from the next generation of operational polarization diversity Doppler radars to be deployed in the next decade. Our modeling studies with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model will determine if modeled precipitation substructures are consistent with observed features in winter storm systems and provide a better understanding of processes responsible for the occurrence of those substructures. |
