19 August 2004 0048 Convection appears a bit more organized and more intense. However, overall storms are pretty isolated, and echo coverage is light compared to previous days. 0103 ClimoFar not topping NE cell near 50 km but I missed the opportunity to switch to ClimoNear. Will switch next sequence, so will likely not top this cell for the second time in a row. There is also a decent storm near 105 deg, 105 km - getting good resolution on that storm as a tradeoff at least. 0112 Seeing that noise spoke pattern in the upper-level scans again. 0115 ClimoNear. 0200 Manually started ClimoFar 30+ sec late. NE storm pooping out with the sun below the horizon. SE convection still in OK shape - turned out to be a decent isolated multicellular storm. 0215 Manual resynch, cut off ~90 deg of the previous 0-deg scan. 0242 Switching PRFs for microphysics scans on storm to SE. 0245 MicroFar90 centered on 120 deg. 0304 Not seeing a lot of lightning from this storm. Deleting 14.0 angle to avoid any synching issues. Storm is topped by 9-10 deg. 0325 Overall, I am not optimistic for this storm's continued survival. 0341 Swapping back to 720 Hz as the main storm dies out with no real replacement. 0345 ClimoFar - OK, maybe didn't need to leave that much time for the PRF switch. Very last PPI sector was cut off significantly, and a lot of antenna dead time awaiting synch. 0349 New development to our NE, within 80 km. 0400 James Done arrives 0415 Switched to microfar90 to capture the lifecycle of the new cells developing to our NE. The main storm is only a small decaying stratiform region so it seems valid to leave it out of the 90deg sector. 0430 Switched to microfar135 to capture the stratiform region within the sector, and to get some RHIs through the cells at 78 and 79 degrees 0445 This sequence took RHIs through 66 and 67degrees to slice the main cores. 0515 This sequence took RHIs through 73 and 74 degrees. The convection seems to be dying so will probably switch to climofar for the next sequence. 0525 The PRF was switched a bit early so I lost the RHIs and the second PPI scan of the sequence. I'm doing one climoshallow scan in the 5 minutes we have 'free'. 0530 switched to climo far - started on time. 0600 switched to climo shallow. 0620 convergence line observed 30km offshore. 0730 Nothing on the radar scope. 0752 Suddenly noticed a line of cells firing only 10km North of the radar. Waited for the first volume of the climoshallow sequence to finish and then switched to climonear at 0752. Will resynch climonear for the next 15minute marker at 0800. The cells are too close to fit into a PPI scan. At SPOL the temperature is 82f and dew-point is 78f 0800 Resynched climonear. 0805 Just been outside and saw no lightning - strange. The cores look fairly substantial at lower levels but are not very intense above, say, 8km. It's difficult to tell though because the 26degree elevation scan cuts through the closer storms at 6km. 0830 The storms are now within 10km of the radar. 1000 Switched to climoshallow because the nearby storms dissapeared as quickly as they arrived. They never reached overhead. 1208 Brenda Dolan here. Nothing much out there at the moment. 1231 Some cells have appeared to the NNW at 180km. Will keep an eye on them. 1333 Besides some echo to the north, there is one oceanic cell WNW of S-Pol at about 100km. 1439 Pretty quiet again. 1530 Stopped radar for Solar cal. Should be down just 15 minutes. There is nothing on the radar scope. 1545 Back to ClimoShallow. 1710 There is one tiny cell over the ocean to the WNW. 1807 Things seem to be suppressed today. There is hardly anything on the scope at the moment. 1827 Ok, now I'm starting to see some things. There is a cell due north at approximately 50km, so I will switch over to ClimoFar. 1830 Now in Climofar. 1923 Cell at 70km NNW of S-Pol is continuing to grow. Some convection starting on mountains. 1934 Cell now has +50dBz reflectivities.Looks to be moving southest, so will keep an eye on it. Jean reports that we can see it visually from the radar site. 1958 Lang here. Switching PRFs. 2000 MicroNear90 on the isolated cell at 330 deg. Dropping unnecessary 26.4 deg scan to keep timing OK. 2015 MicroFar90 as Near was a bit much. Storm is weakening a bit I'd say. 2030 Manual restart to ensure sync. 2032 Rotating next PPI to 60 deg to cover new development near 70 deg and edcge of scope. Original storm perishing quickly, and this new cell has up to 60 dBZ. 2043 Dropped the 14 deg scan to ensure sync. 2057 Switching back to 720 Hz PRF. 2100 ClimoFar. Storms moving westward, not eastward, today. There is some convection moving in from over the high terrain. The PPIs were scanning the lading edge of this stuff. So far, this day looks reasonably promising. 2146 Restarted manually, 1.5 min late. For some reason there was no restart at 2145. 2200 Manual restart of ClimoFar to ensure sync. Missed portions of 14 deg & all of 0 deg. Northeastern convection looking pretty good - multicell system. Will hold off on microphysics tho, as there are a lot of other storms (esp. at long range) and we already have 3+ h of microphysics today. 2241 Mtn convection showing increasing organization and linearity. 2245 ClimoNear to top nearby convection along 60 deg. NW coastal area active w/ convection too, though a well-defined sea-brz front does not exist. 2315 Running a test sequence - rain map plus two 170-deg sectors, centered on the mtn and other land convection. Resolution is a bit under 2 deg per elev step. This will at least get us two updates per 15-min cycle without giving up a lot of covg. Ocean is bone dry right now, save for ... well, you know, all the water in it. 2330 Modified angles a bit for better vert res near sfc. First sector did not top closest convection, second had its top angle upped a bit and still fell just short, so top angle has been upped to 21 deg. Sync was OK, number of tilts just right I think. 2345 $#$%%#@%! Synch stuff does not work reliably. Manual reset 45 sec late. Moving up angles again due to lack of topping one nearby storm.