The NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), in partnership with the University of Oklahoma and has launched an app where users can anonymously report precipitation from their iPhone or Android through the “mobile Precipitation Identification Near the Ground “mPING” app. NSSL researchers will compare the reports with what radars detect and use the information to develop new radar and forecasting technologies and techniques to determine whether snow, rain, ice pellets, mixtures or hail is falling. NSSL hopes to build a valuable database of tens of thousands of observations from across the U.S.
The apps are available on iTunes or Google Play for use on both phones and tablets.
The reports can be viewed here in real-time:
http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/ping/display/
Learn more at NSSL’s main PING page: http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/ping/
