Did you see it? NASA uses retired spy plane to survey, improve snow forecasts
If you looked up early Wednesday afternoon and noticed a unusual looking white aircraft high up against the clear Carolina blue skies, you caught a rare glimpse of a spy plane turned science platform for NASA. It returned to Pope Airfield shortly after 1 p.m. on Wednesday passing over Rocky Mount, Wendell and Lillington en route, and catching the eye of WRAL viewers who asked if they'd just seen a U-2.
Posted — UpdatedIf you looked up early Wednesday afternoon and noticed an unusual looking white aircraft high up against the clear Carolina blue skies, you caught a rare glimpse of a spy plane-turned science platform for NASA.
It returned to Pope Airfield shortly after 1 p.m. on Wednesday, passing over Rocky Mount, Wendell and Lillington en route, and catching the eye of WRAL viewers who asked if they'd just seen a U-2.
NASA operates a pair of these Lockheed ER-2 aircraft, a modified version of the high-flying U-2 reconnaissance planes that flew spy missions during the Cold War.
Each serves as a flying laboratory in the Airborne Science Program. Since 1971, NASA's ER-2's and the U-2's that preceded them have flown more than 4,500 missions gathering scientific data. They are also developing new electronic sensors as well as calibrating weather and climate research satellites.
Wednesday's flight was part of NASA's Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms (IMPACTS). Since February of 2020, flights have been conducted from the Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore spanning from Savannah, Ga., across the Carolinas to the Ohio Valley and across New England states, focusing on the clouds that produce snow.
Data gathered by these planes will help meteorologists improve snowfall predictions by providing a better understanding of how snowbands form, are organized, and evolve over time.
How it works
Advanced radar, lidar, and microwave radiometer remote sensing instruments are onboard the ER-2 while the P-3 includes sensors which measure the water content and particle size in clouds, studying icing and the airflow around precipitation. Scientists can also release radiosondes similar to those used to study hurricanes.
An ER-2 plane looks down on about 95% of the atmosphere flying at an altitude of up to 70,000 feet while its sister ship, a P-3 Orion originally designed as a sub hunter for the U.S. Navy, flies through the cloud layer at about one-third that altitude. These aircraft, working with ground observations and weather satellites like the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) and GOES satellites, study the atmosphere from top to bottom in conditions that can deliver snow.
A similar stacked approach has been used by NASA atmospheric research scientists for many years. We saw this in action several years ago in western North Carolina. Instruments matched those onboard the recently launched GPM satellite.
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