Weather Satellite Comes To Newark

NEWARK -- Perhaps the latest illustration of NASA and Wallops Island’s increased presence in Worcester County and across the Lower Shore was the addition of a nearly three-story tall weather satellite station in Newark last week.

As part of NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, the agency is erecting satellite facilities in remote areas all over the country to collect data on rainfall and snowfall predictions based on the highly technical analysis of clouds. Because of its proximity to NASA’s facility at Wallops Island along the Virginia coast just south of Assateague, the rural town of Newark was chosen as a location for one of the satellites.

The satellite facility looks somewhat out of place amid the cornfields and farms along Five Mile Branch Rd. near the Queponco Railroad Museum in tiny Newark. The dish itself is 28 feet in diameter and at its height stands about 28 feet tall.
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