Precipitation rate and extinction in falling snow.

Abstract

A spectral technique for the determination of airborne snow mass concentration and the precipitation rate of equivalent liquid water is proposed and tested. A measure of the particle size distribution obtained from the ratio of visible (0.55 micrometer) and infrared (10.6 micrometer) extinction coefficients is used to calculate composite particle fall velocity and effective extinction efficiency which in turn are used in computing mass concentration and precipitation rate. Calculations using this technique agree well with field measurements.-from Author