Combining ASOS and mPING Observations for a Revised Winter Precipitation Climatology

The Meteorological Phenomena Identification Near the Ground (mPING) project has been active for five years and collected over two million ptype observations from anonymous volunteers. Observations from mPING have been combined with ASOS automated observations to better define a winter precipitation climatology over the CONUS. This climatology aids in planning for surface transportation mitigation treatments, long-term anticipation of flight delays, insurance risk pools, etc. An aspect of mPING observations that set them apart form ASOS is ice pellets. ASOS observations can contain ice pellets only if augmented by an on-site observer, while mPING collects ice pellet observations as a matter of course. Upon combining both sets of observations, more hours of each principle type pf precipitation is apparent than from each system alone. These two sources of surface precipitation type observations are compared and combined to provide a revised climatology of winter precipitation spanning the moths from November through March.