PRINCESS ANNE, Md. - A nearly year-long collaboration between University of Maryland Eastern Shore and NASA Wallops personnel has resulted in the deployment of a local rainfall measurement system.
The Platform with Instruments for Estimating Rainfall at the Surface system (PIERS) was revealed today at the Engineering and Aviation Science Complex on the UMES campus.
PIERS is a system developed by NASA/Wallops to measure rainfall using rain gauges and particle size distributions with a Parsvel disdrometer. PIERS uses solar power and cell modems to transmit rainfall information to NASA servers. Data will be relayed to those servers every 15 minutes.
NASA’s David Wolff served as the deputy project scientist whose team mentored the participating UMES engineering students. Those students, under Wolff’s and UMES professor Joel Tomlinson’s guidance, will be responsible for general maintenance and data analysis.
“This deployment wraps up a near-year partnership wherein the engineering students received authentic, highly immersive experience under the tutelage of a NASA mentor,” said Nicole Turner, NASA Equity Project Manager. “This cohort model was the first of its kind between NASA and UMES, with additional cohorts expected in the future.”
More information on PIERS and the data it collects can be found at https://wallops-prf.gsfc.nasa.gov/Gauge/