In-situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail In the Plains (ICECHIP)

This award represents a small planning grant for a potential future field experiment for the study of hail. The In-Situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail in the Plains (ICECHIP) study would make use of a host of instrumentation to study hail processes in thunderstorms in the Great Plains and Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, the US locations that most commonly experience hail.

The project would engage with stakeholders such as the insurance industry and operational weather forecasters to ensure broad societal impact. Significant student participation would ensure the training and education of the next generation of scientists.

The ICECHIP field campaign would make use of research aircraft, a set of ground-based radars, unmanned aerial systems, surface and upper-air instrumentation, and ground observations of hail. The research team has identified 5 major science themes that they plan to address: 1) improve understanding of hailstone development, in storm characteristics, and fall behavior; 2) examine in-storm hail trajectory and convective updraft relationships; 3) assess the impact of differing environmental thermodynamic and kinetic regimes and geographic location on hail processes and predictability; 4) summarize surface properties of hailstones and associated impacts; 5) characterize hailstone physical properties and their relationship to radar observations.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.