Orientations and aspect ratios of falling snow : ORIENTATIONS OF SNOW

General equations are derived for computing the amplitude matrix for a nonspherical particle in an arbitrary orientation and for arbitrary illumination and scattering directions with respect to the laboratory reference frame, provided that the scattering problem can be solved with respect to the particle reference frame. These equations are used along with the T-matrix method to provide benchmark results for homogeneous, dielectric, rotationally symmetric particles. The computer code is publicly available on the World-Wide Web at http://www.giss.nasa.gov/~crmim.