The Global Hydrometeorology Resource Center (GHRC) DAAC scientist traveled to participate in the final week of the Lake Effect Electrification (LEE) field campaign in Oswego, New York. Serving as one of the PIs for this National Science Foundation funded project, he supported the balloon team responsible for launching electric field mills and particle imagers into the snow bands. The LEE campaign running from November 2022 through the first week of February 2023 was designed to investigate the electrification characteristics of lake effect snowstorms coming off of Lake Ontario. There is particular interest with this in the Tug Hill region east of Lake Ontario, which supports a large wind farm and a better understanding of which snow bands will generate lightning will help protect the wind turbines. From the DAAC perspective, the LEE campaign has ties to the Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms (IMPACTS) campaign. While the LEE data will be archived by the National Science Foundation, GHRC (hosting IMPACTS) is using this as an opportunity to discuss potential ways to enable cross-agency data referencing.
