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NASA Wallops Flight Facility Precipitation Science Research Facility

GPM Precipitation Science Research Facility at Wallops Flight Facility

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has a long and distinguished record as a world-class research and development center in precipitation science. As the lead institute for the highly successful Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and the upcoming Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission, GSFC has played a prominent role in advancing space-based precipitation measurement, analysis, and applications. GPM is a constellation-based international satellite mission led by NASA and JAXA in partnership with other domestic and international space agencies to provide next-generation unified precipitation measurements from space, with the ultimate goal of developing high-resolution, near real-time global precipitation data products by combining all available information from space and ground-based measurements.

NASA has extended GPM/PMM ground-validation (GV) activities through the development of a WFF-based network of state-of-the-art GPM GV rain gauge, disdrometer and multi-parameter radar measurements geared toward validating NASA precipitation products (spaceborne and/or combined ground and spaceborne retrieval algorithms and physics). Core components of this activity also focus on the design of new GV instruments, test new GV measurement methods, and assess GV instrument measurement uncertainties. The contingent of GPM GV instruments, associated staff, and regional data collections comprise the "core" components of the WFF Precipitation Science Research Facility.

GPM-WFF validation Network including various instruments

Software and Tools

GVRadar GVRadar
pySIMBA pySIMBA
NASA's Radar Software Library Radar Software Library (RSL)
NASA's RSL in IDL RSL-in-IDL

Latest SkewT from Wallops (WAL)

Latest WAL 00 UTC Sounding

Latest WAL 12 UTC Sounding

Local Radar

Local Forecast


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