Identification

Title

Vertical motions in orographic cloud systems over the Payette River Basin. Part IV: Controls on Supercooled Liquid Water Content and cloud droplet number concentrations

Abstract

This paper examines the controls on supercooled liquid water content (SLWC) and drop number concenExperiment (SNOWIE) campaign. During SNOWIE, 27.4% of 1-Hz in situ cloud droplet probe samples were in an environment containing supercooled liquid water (SLW). The interquartile range of SLWC, when present, was found to be 0.02-0.18 g m-3 and 13.3-37.2 cm-3 for Nt,CDP, with the most extreme values reaching 0.40-1.75 g m-3 and 150-320 cm-3 in isolated regions of convection and strong shear-induced turbulence. SLWC and Nt,CDP distributions are shown to be directly related to cloud-top temperature and ice particle concentrations, consistent with past research over other mountain ranges. Two classes of vertical motions were analyzed as potential controls on SLWC and Nt,CDP, the first forced by the orography and fixed in space relative to the topography (stationary waves) and the second transient, triggered by vertical shear and instability within passing synoptic-scale cyclones. SLWC occurrence and magnitudes, and Nt,CDP associated with fixed updrafts were found to be normally distributed about ridgelines when SLW was present. SLW was more likely to form at low altitudes near the terrain slope associated with fixed waves due to higher mixing ratios and larger vertical air parcel displacements at low altitudes. When considering transient updrafts, SLWC and Nt,CDP appear more uniformly distributed over the flight track with little discernable terrain dependence as a result of time and spatially varying updrafts associated with passing weather systems. The implications for cloud seeding over the basin are discussed.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7bc43n9

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

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code identifying the spatial reference system

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geoscientificInformation

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Text

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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

2023-10-01T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 2023 American Meteorological Society (AMS).

Limitations on public access

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

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

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 date

2025-07-11T15:14:02.032268

Metadata language

eng; USA