17 July 2004

0045	Went to ClimoFar as there is nothing of interest within 150 km of S-Pol. 
	IR cloud tops show warming in our vicinity. Some interesting file line 
	structures "weaving" out over GoC, only visible in 0.0 deg tilt - wonder 
	what those bugs are doing out there...

0150	Call from Al - their car battery is dead. If they can't find an 
	alternative ride, we (Jonathan and I) will probably run in auto-pilot,
	lock up and leave at 03UTC. Water vapor and IR loops suggest most action 
	is well N of us and we're in kind of a dead zone. 

0300	Running ClimoShallow auto-pilot mode. locking up and heading back.

0421	Dave and Al here now.

0720	Tiny cells popping uo 20-40 km east.

0735	Will switch to ClimoFar.

0829	Not too impressive: tops to 8-9 km.

0839	Beyond 120 km to SE, new cells are much stronger - up to ~ 15 km.

0852	CIDD RHI tool is very useful for keeping track of storm heights.

0906	ClimoFar is still doing a good job of topping cells beyond 30 km.

0914	Went outside/ flash over about 3 min.

0929	ClimoNear.

0936	Should consider micro-scans with higher PRF. But would loose lots of echo 
	at perimeter of scope.

0957	Switching to micro-scans.

1002	Running smoothly. Unfortunately there is a lot of echo within 30 km. Not 
	topping it.

1014	Sequence ends about 1 minute early. But Tim warned against doing ad-hoc 
	RHIs to kill time. This messes up the initial 360 deg after the RHIs are 
	done.

1044	Had some rain here about an hour ago. Check raingauge.

1059	Trying MicroNear 90 for a while.

1109	Don't like missing stuff near edges. Switching back to 135 deg sectors.

1115	Switched back to 135 deg sector over southeast.

1130	Had to manually stop, reset and start next 15-min sequence because it was 
	running a little past 1130 UTC.

1210	Switching back to 720 Hz PRF and ClimoFar sequence.

1800	Rob Cifelli on site. currently in ClimoFar mode Trace rain in the gauge. 
	Currently scattered cells extending from SPol to ~ 80 km W-SW over Gulf. 
	Nothing impressive - weak, decaying SF blobs - appears to be remnants of 
	precip over Mazatlan this morning.... low-level winds are easterly. 
	CIDDS Time loop indicated that echo activity generally decreasing over 
	time. Slight northward advection of echo's but mostly dissipation in place 
	over time- will keep ClimoFar going from now, no current echoes over SMO. 
	Talked to Mike Dickson about archiving CIDD's formatted data - "mdv" 
	files. will need to get some DCD's ~ 4-5 GB/ day. Also need to talk to 
	Scott Ellis after project about comparing HID/rainfall between CSU-NCAR.

1820	Taking radar down for 15-20 minutes. Don needs to do some work.

1830	Scanning again.

	Note: to do vertical scans (bird bath) use angle list #10 (89.5,89.6 deg 
	etc), run a surveillance scan (e.g. ClimoNear using az rate ~ 50 deg/s and 
	angle list #10). Remember to move angle list and antenna rate back when 
	done!

1853	Antenna hung. Reset ClimoFar.

1900	Back on schedule with ClimoFar.

1945	Few small cells forming over SMO ~ 150 km SE of S-Pol.

2050	Echo coverage to SW over SMO slowly increasing.- no apparent organization 
	at this time - just isolate cells. 0.0 deg scan shows some nice fine (
	(bugs) line oriented N-S moving westward about 50 km from S-Pol. This line 
	is > 100 km in length. Complicated flow pattern once again with cells on 
	SMO moving W in upper level east flow and echoes closer to coast moving N. 
	ETL profiler suggests switchover from onshore (NW) flow to off-shore (SE) 
	around 14UTC. Flow back to onshore (SW) ~ 19UTC.

	Note: to run CISS from Zebu: ssh -X operator@iq_start_CIDD.zebu.
	password is "phoenix"
	MIke Dixon added Kdp (NKDP) and HID (PD) to CIDDS.

2130	Some cells continue slow advection westward. Still 120 km from radar 
	producing some anvil (upwind to east) and showing signs of fizzling...

	netcdf data on zebu under science IP: 192.168.4.3
	passwrd: science@spol

2230	Cell activity to the east may warrant going to Near (either Climo or 
	micro) as we are on the verge of not topping several cells (~80 km 
	distant) in NE-SE sector. CIDDs cross section indicates 55+ dBZ with 15-16 
	km echo tops.

2245	CIDDS X-sections indicating very narrow cores in the SMO cells (< 5 km) 
	and no appreciable ZDR columns.

2300	Started MicroFar 135 deg sector scan centered on 75 deg - most active area 
	appears to be cell group @ 60 deg az 120 km distance.

2320	Doing the x-section thing.

2340	Cell at az 58 deg has ZDRs to 3.5 dB - that's about the highest I have 
	seen so far (dBz's ~ 55)

2345	Moving to MicroNear 135 to top convection in NE quadrant - also shifted 
	center to 50deg to get some stuff farther N.