30 July 2004

0032	Storms reforming along outflow/sea breeze front in close range (30 km).

0105	Nearby storms are too small to worry about.  Switching to ClimoFar.

0115	ClimoFar began.

0300	Gustavo at radar.

0600	All echoes below 6.7 deg.  Switched to ClimoShallow.

0800	A convective line began to form at 06:30 near the coastline, ~80 km SSE of S-Pol.  Switched to ClimoFar to top this line.  Thunders in Mazatlan at 07:30.

0847	IQ froze.  Rebooted it.

0930	Echoes near the radar cannot be topped by ClimoFar.  Switched to ClimoNear.

1145	Nothing in range.  Switched to ClimoShallow again.

1200	Sarah and Simona here.

1215	The land breeze boundary is evident over the ocean, as always parallel to the coast.  Interestingly, it shows 2 very pronounced kinks - just like we saw on 27 July (~03:45).  Is this somehow related to convection on previous day?  Or land effects?

1230	Cell is seen to pop up on this boundary to SE, at around 80-100 km.  AT 6.7 deg, ~22 dBZ so we will switch to ClimoFar at 12:45.

1245	Switched to ClimoFar.

1500	Line of cells SW of radar diminished and we switched to ClimoShallow.  Weak fine line boundary still evident in 0 deg scan, but it has diminished since earlier.

1515	We took the rain map.  Then stopped the radar for solar scan/leveling of antenna.

1545	Ran a rain map ... stopped afterward for solar scan since techs needed it longer for that.  One new shallow cell ~140 km range to SSE ... will monitor when solar scan is done in 15 min to see if ops should start again continuously.

1600	Solar scan complete ... started ClimoShallow.

1605	Zebra crashed on Zebu, rebooted Zebu.

1643	Cells to SW of radar are dying and techs are requesting radar time.  Will run rain map at 1645 and let them have it for 30 min, at which time we'll run another rain map and monitor for new echoes.

1648	Stopped antenna for techs after rain map.

1719	Started ClimoShallow after techs finished ... 4 min late though for 15-min mark.

1726	New echo within 20 km of radar ... will switch to ClimoNear at 1730.  A group of new cells also showed up at ~130 km SE of radar but to attempt to top cell near us we will do ClimoNear.

1730	Started ClimoNear, and then soon noticed we over did it ... oops!  The cell near us was topped by 13.8 scan so we could have done ClimoFar (sorry!).  We will switch to ClimoFar at next 15-min mark.

1745	Switched to ClimoFar.

1800	Nesbitt on duty.  Some shallow, isolated storms SE of radar.  Very shallow on visual inspection.  Flow SW at low levels veering to NW at 3 km +.

1856	Storms in SE sector continue to fire on coastal plain with 40 dBZ spotted in lowest levels.

1930	Switched to ClimoNear to top storm ~50 km range in SE sector.

2030	Storms near fading; increasing precip coverage over mountains.

2110	Staying in ClimoNear?  Anvils remaining on scope - storms far look interesting.  Switch to ClimoFar.

2115	ClimoFar - Growing storms @ 110 km in SE quadrant.

2130	Back to ClimoNear - fast-moving storms approaching from NE.

2237	Appears cells are trying to organize south of 60 deg radial - they have linked anvils anyway.  Good phase shift in cells to N (40 km range) and cell at 70 km range at 70 deg azimuth.

2250	Scott Ellis notified me that the clutter filter is only enabled out to 120 km.  Maybe the default for S-Pol, or set by a previous PI?  Will keep as is, but doesn't filter out hill at 125 km range, 80 deg azimuth.

2336	Good convergence in cells at 80 km range due N - sea breeze converging with N flow at above 2 km.

2343	Storms to N organizing.  CIDD crash, reboot.