19 July 2004 0015 Antenna stuck - resetting. Convection continues to weaken in our area, but I'm sticking w/ nears since we're surrounded by anvil (at least N - weak convection?). IR loop confirms warming cloud tops over time in our vicinity. 0030 Going to ClimoFar since we are in fact topping echo 30 km of radar. 0100 Large echo complex moving into view from SE quadrant - still about 150 km distant - motion is toward W-NW. 0200 Echo top area popped up ~60 km E-NE of SPOL over last hr - switching to ClimoNear to top. Note - CIDDS not updating 0145 Volume ... not updating anything now. 0245 Rain at SPOL. 0313 Dave Ahijevych; Doing vertically pointing scan (~3 min). Light rain - big drops. 0317 Switching back to ClimoNear. 0330 Only high dBZ stuff not being topped by 14 deg is brightband. Switched to ClimoFar. 0450 Scattered cells popping up. 0521 Stronger cells 100 km north. 0636 90 km to the NNE, a 14 km high storm. 0700 Hit and miss over profiler. Don't know if profiler scan has been run yet. So I might test my luck and run it. 0715 ClimoNear. 0815 Going to 960 Hz PRF. Running MicroNear90. Losing some coverage of cells far to the southeast. Lots of lightning in cells to north. 0825 Rain (moderate) over NOAA profiler. Suspect at least 30 minutes-worth coming up. 3 updates per 15 min should substitute well for an official "profiler" scan sequence. 0832 Started late - some dead time. Saved a CIDD X-section on Zh, Zdr. 0838 Slowly translatin g the sector CCW (counterclockwise). 0846 Started late again, but not as late as before. 0852 Now storms are cropping up very close by. < 10 km north of S-Pol. I think they are shallow. 0902 Started late again. Deleted 26.4 deg elevation scan temporarily from the angle list. 0916 Started minute late ... hard to catch up. 0923 Stopped turning CCW and stepped CW a degree. 0933 Target is dying, but I stay with it, just to get a nice complete lifecycle. Other storms outside of the sector to the east look better. 0945 Moving CW to sample storms to east. If not interesting, will switch back to ClimoPRF. Reinserted 26.4 deg elevation scan. 1004 Will stay with 135 deg sectors for a while. Storms are interesting. Storms are more organized than usual. They have a preferred E-W orientation and ~40 km spacing. 1019 By focusing on a sector to the NE, I miss a big storm to the SE. 1040 Now including big storm to SE in 135 deg sector. 1100 MicroFar135. I think 14 deg should top everything but anvil now. 1121 Lot of lightning flashes in the distance. 1155 Decisions, decisions. What to leave it in for unattended mode. It's still an active weather situation. Leaving in ClimoFar after switching back to low PRF. Got 3.5 hours of sector scans done on my shift. Nice dynamics/microphysics case. Just didn't finish the lifecycle of the s southeast quadrant storms. Didn't catch their genesis either, actually. Ah well. 1800 RC & Simone onsite. Raingauge is empty. Radar ran ClimoShallow through 1630 UTC to continue sampling convection after Maz. Then, radar down for Ka-band work. Have agreed to reassess situation at 19 UTC and probably will bring online by 1930, similar to yesterday. Currently, IR loop shows warming cloud tops over GOC associated with last vestiges of this AM's coastal activity. No sign of activity over SMO. Visible satellite loop shows sea breeze moving onshore ~17 UTC in line extending > 200 km – moving inland. 1930 Radar back up in ClimoShallow - some cell activity over favored area of SMO ~ 180 km SE of SPOL. 2015 Switched to ClimoFar to top activity in NE sector. 2110 Cell activity 100-120 km NE. Still topping OK w/ ClimoFar but need to keep an eye on this. X-sections show tops to ~10 km with 40+ dBZ cores. 2125 Cell ~80 km distant intensifying - tops to ~16 km and not quite topping now. 2130 Switching to ClimoNear - only 1-2 cells of interest so I don't think microscans are warranted (yet). Cells just don't seem as intense as yesterday in terms of core magnitude and depth. Both MMMZ and Altair sounding show dry layer at 900 mb and ~650-720 (pronounced inversion here).