TULSA, OKLA. — We saw a lot of ice this week, which led to many disruptions across the area.
Most people experienced two rounds of sleet, which included thunder. But we also observed freezing rain and graupel, which you can think of as a soft hail. With all of these different types of precipitation, it's hard to keep track of it all because doppler radar and weather stations can only do so much. Meteorologists relied on the public's storm reports through an app to gauge exactly what was happening at ground level. The app is called mPING. I went to the National Weather Service office in Tulsa to get more details about it.
"mPING stands for Meteorological Phenomena Identification Near the Ground and it's an app that you can download onto your phone or tablet that helps meteorologists here at the weather service as well as researchers understand what type of rainfall, snowfall, and sleet that is actually reaching the ground," says Meteorologist Nicole McGavock from NWS Tulsa.
The research has to do with doppler radars. There are computer algorithms in place now that help sort different precip types within the radar scans. But with these added crowdsourcing reports, the algorithms will continue to get better with the added information from us, the ground spotters. The reports you send also tag your GPS location. No other info will be given in the report.
To get started with being a citizen weather spotter, you can download the app from the Apple Store or Google Play Store. Just search for mPING.
More info about the mPING program can be found here: https://mping.nssl.noaa.gov/
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