24 July 2004 0000 switched to ClimoNear to capture tops of cells at 45-120deg/45 km. Scattered convection over SMO 0051 IQ froze up- rebooting. Came back up OK but seem to have lost data after 2314. 0211 Stratiform region to NE has distinct bright band feature 0300 David A. here. Considering ClimoFar since we top all echo < 10 dBZ at 14 deg elevation. Only irregular ice and ice indicated at 13.8 deg 0345 ClimoFar 0700 Large-scale broad cyclonic motion to echoes. (Southward movement over ocean, northward over land) 0715 Tim R. has been working on the tape archiver for the past hour, trying to start a new "IOP" and synchronize #1 and #2. #1 appears to be working, but #2 does not. 0957 I think we are safe for ClimoShallow now. all echo > 5 dBZ confined below 6deg elevation 1015 ClimoShallow 1037 at 80 km, 300deg there's ~20dBZ echo at 6.7deg. Switching back to ClimoFar soon. Looks like the oceanic fine line is about to activate deep convection within 60 km. 1045 ClimoFar 1200 Brenda Dolan & Simona Bordoni here. Still running ClimoFar. 1315 There are some cells that are starting to form close to the radar, to the S-SW. One in particular appears to be larger that the others (still skinny though), but it is growing. We are probably not topping this one, which is ~ 30 km range, so thinking about switching to higher elevation angle scans at the next 15 minutes scan. This also appears to be moving closer to the radar. 1330 Switched to ClimoNear 1445 Things seem to be dying off 1430 We are switching to ClimoFar, as there is nothing much left within close distance to the radar. 1432 We switched two minutes late. We will stop it at 1445 to make sure that we be on time for next scan 1445 ClimFar reset to full 15 minutes 1525 Solar scan. The scope appeared pretty empty. There are some small cells that were seen to start developing in the SW at ~ 100 km range over the ocean. But skinny and relatively low dBZ. 1545 ClimoFar on again 1605 Called Rob Cifelli to discuss the radar down. We have 2 persistent cells at ! 20 km, but they are tiny and two small cells at ranges greater than 120 km. Therefore we are bringing the radar down for work on ka band, with the stipulation that we will do a low level scan for a "quick look" and make a decision about coming back at that point. 1745 Rob C. and Andrea S. on duty 1800 S_pol up. ClimoFar scan started at 1803 1811 Scan sequence messed up - radar jumped to 0deg and froze a little over halfway through. 1815 Restarted ClimoFar scan sequence. It ran fine and sync worked 1845 few cells popping up over preferred origination area NE-SE ~ 150 km distant. Timeloop showing fine line associated with sea breeze passing S-Pol ~ 1815 and heading inland Satellite loop continue to show broad cyclonic motion over region. No rain in gauge 1930 nice congestus going up N-E of S-Pol visually, these clouds are quite skinny and seem to fall apart quickly. Seems consistent with dry layer in MMMZ sounding (below 500 mb) 2130 Switched to ClimoNear. Two cells are not being topped so we will try to top them for a while. Cores are skinny, with some presence of anvil. Positions are 345deg/50 km and 95 deg/35 km, with > 50 dBZ. Appear to be moving slowly toards N/NW. 2215 watching cell growth to our east - echo ~ 40 km distant now show respectable ZDR column to 6+ km more or less aligned with dBZ core. Phase shift are ~ 1.5-2.0deg/km. Made some cross sections. Visually this cell has a huge anvil associated with it... satellite overaly of dBZ also shows this. 2346 IQ froze again (forze up yesterday about the same time of day). Rebooting.