Identification

Title

Observed hazards to aircraft in deep summertime convective clouds from 4-7 km

Abstract

Data from flights by the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology’s North American T-28 storm-penetrating aircraft during nine different research projects conducted between 1991 and 2003 are analyzed. These flights, usually flown during the summer months in the central and high plains in the United States, targeted regions of convective storms containing vigorous updrafts, downdrafts, and precipitation, including hail. Observations indicate that three of the most hazardous components of flying in summertime deep convective clouds are aircraft icing, turbulence from strong vertical wind gradients, and hail. There is also a smaller, but still important, threat from lightning. Statistics of the observations show that at any given time there is approximately a 10% probability of encountering severe icing conditions, approximately a 0.1% probability of encountering extreme turbulence, and approximately a 0.2% probability of encountering hail with mean diameter 2.5 cm or greater within convective clouds in the 4-7 km mean sea level altitude range. The purpose of this study is to analyze the convective environments under which these hazards occur in order to provide reference and/or guidance for conditions that might be encountered within summertime convective clouds by aircraft.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7pn96g2

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2013-05-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact