Identification

Title

Snow growth and transport patterns in orographic storms as estimated from airborne vertical-plane dual-Doppler Radar data

Abstract

Airborne vertical-plane dual-Doppler cloud radar data, collected on wind-parallel flight legs over a mountain in Wyoming during 16 winter storms, are used to analyze the growth, transport, and sedimentation of snow. In all storms the wind is rather strong, such that the flow is unblocked. The sampled clouds are mixed phase, shallow, and generally produce snowfall over the mountain only. The 2D scatterers’ mean motion in the vertical along-track plane below flight level is synthesized using one radar antenna pointing to nadir, and one 30° forward of nadir. This yields instantaneous cross-mountain hydrometeor streamlines. The dynamics of the orographic flow dominate the precipitation patterns across the mountain. Three patterns are distinguished: the first two contain small convective cells, either boundary layer (BL) convection or elevated convection, the latter likely due to the release of potential instability in orographically lifted air. In these patterns the cross-mountain flow is relatively undisturbed. Precipitation from BL convection falls mostly on the windward side but precipitation from elevated convection may fall mostly in the lee. The third pattern is marked by more stratified flow, often with vertically propagating mountain waves, and with strong, plunging flow in the lee, resulting in rapid clearing of the storm across the crest and occasionally a hydraulic jump. In this case, most snow tends to fall upwind of the crest, although a shallow, sublimating snow “foot” is often seen over the leeward slopes.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d79p32tj

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

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Classification of spatial data and services

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geoscientificInformation

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title

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reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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publication

effective date

2015-02-01T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 2015 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

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None

Responsible organisations

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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

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