15 July 2004 0000 Continue on ClimoShallow; topping everything but anvil right now, convection continues to diminish and look weak. 0015 Movie loop shows gradual increase in stratiform rain coverage; convective cells diminished at this point. 0022 Altair location (23.5 N, 108 W) available in solo now, apparently. 0045 Started ClimoFar in anticipation of this encroaching stratiform precip; not sure if it is really needed, but it does make it safer we will top whatever comes; there is a weak cell moving out to sea, to NE ~ 100 km range. 0050 There is a NW-SE boundary that has stalled out NE of S-Pol; perhaps mountains are impeding movement; it wants to move NE in the NW flow near the sfc. No development along it at this time. 0140 Stratiform echo appears to be diminishing now; boundary has also mostly gone away. 0234 Some more substantial stratiform echo moving into range from north. 0245 FYI, in 140x10^3 km^2 vs. 70x10^3 km^2 in 960 hz mode. that's a huge increase in areal coverage. also, another shift report was just sent to the joss site. sun spike showing up in low-elevation scans ~ 0200 UTC -> something to be aware of during post-project analysis. 0315 Tim Lang left. Dave Ahijevych taking over. 0327 Near surface winds northerly at 10 m/s. 0430 Switching to ClimoShallow. Lot of oceanic precip moving slowly southward. Some over land too. 0629 Precip remains north of NOAA profiler site. 0838 Line of cells (weak) lighting up along some boundary about 10 km offshore near Mazatlan. Land breeze front? 0853 Cells are strengthening. 0915 Switched to ClimoFar to top storms 0935 IR satellite, while very coarse, show these storms may be associated with earlier storms over land. 0955 Estimated echo tops up to 12.3 km. 100 km, 6.7 deg -> 0.6 + 11.7 = 12.3 1014 Rit is not coming in at 12 UTC, recommends unattended ops in ClimoFar. 1151 Perhaps stratiform rain will move over profiler site later today. 1200 Leaving in unattended mode. 1753 Rit and SAR arrive - unattended ran fine since 1200 UTC. 1834 few cells developing over high terrain to east now, with peak reflectivities to ~ 45 dBZ. There is a large cold cloud shield to far south of MAZ, looks like a small MCC. We are seeing the s/f echo from it just at our max range to the SE. Saw 1 embedded cell in the s/f echo about 30 mins ago. 1846 Doppler velocity data indicate a diffluent flow - westerly flow at low levels over land and northerly flow at low levels over water. NW flow aloft though, over water anyway. Easterlies present over land - looks like we must have convergence somewhere & we are hopeful we will have some decent storms today. 1853 Maybe today will be a DYNAMICS day! 1902 Strongest cell is 40 deg./130 km - with peak dBZ to ~ 60. Strong low level convergence too. 2000 RC on site. No rain in gauge. Watching N edge of MCS moving off screen to south. Shear line separating NW-NE floe is about 50 km east of us now (also southerly south of us). Rolls (longitudinal to southerly flow apparent ~ 100 km north of is. Will be interesting to see how all this plays out. R. Carbone is of firm belief that we are on the verge of big action! M. Dixon has satellite overlays available in CIDDS - very handy to put echoes in large scale context. Also have polarimetric variables ready for display. 2021 Echoes advecting from SMO, now 80-100 km E. One cell w/58+ dBZ core. Nice convergence at low levels. CIDDS x-section at 2029 shows tops to ~ 15 km w/ 50 dBZ to 8 km. No Zdr column yet. Estimated Kdp 0.5-1.0 deg/km. 2030 Setup tmp directory on IQ to dump CIDDS images of interest. Use linux "import" command to capture an image. >import rhi.gif then click on window of interest. renaming images files to spol_YYMMDD_HHMM_rhi/ppi.gif. 2100 Made some x-sections of cell (1445) - Zdr column showing up but no apparent LDR cap. dBZ's are 60+ (cell still 80-100 km east). Putting out a low level cold pool now. 2105 New cell growth ~ 40 km to east. several cells oriented N-S considering going to microphysics mode if these cells continue to intensify. Probably this is all due to advection of upper level trough over our area. 2115 Went to micro near 135 - centered at 60 deg (may want to adj. center point). Set rhi to slice echo to NW (52 deg). Goofed, forgot to have the PRF changed - Johnathon is doing that now. 2128 Started MicroNear again, rain map w/960 microsec pulse 2130 Killed & restarted Micro135 to get back on schedule. 2150 Time loop of cells 40 km east doesn't show much evidence for formation via propagation from activity further E (80-100 km). if anything "might" be some kind of fine line moving E from GOF that lent to development. 2205 Watching development of cells ~ 40 km E - not much advection westward. first group of cells seems to be dissipating but new development there now. Shear line as forcing mechanism? Note significant anvil growth E of cell despite upper level easterly flow. 2230 Everything is falling apart-dissipating w/ extensive anvil to the west. Probably go to micro far 135 soon to improve vertical resolution. Note: extensive anvil production from these cells suggests very inefficient precipitation process - maybe a good research topic. 2245 Switched to microFar135 to improve vertical resolution. We won't top the cells ~ 30 km east but they're mostly anvils at upper levels anyway. 135 deg sector centered on 97 deg az seems to be adequate, not sure where to put RHI. it's all falling apart now. Will go back to Climo mode at 2300 UTC. 2300 Switchback to 720 pulse -> ClimoFar. Some development of cells 150 km SE over SMO. Motion is towards W but cells generally dissipating in place.