03 August 2004

0100	Small MCS moving NW in north part of domain.  Line continues to approach from west.

0230	Went to ClimoNear. Forward anvil from system reached 10dBz at 14deg.

0300	Dave A. here. James Done arrived at the Costa Bonita this evening.Easterly cell motion instead of SE yesterday.  Looks like convection upstream over the Mexican plateau.  Only business over us is anvil right now. My writing doesn't make much sense.  Running ClimoNear for anvil echoes up high.

0447	Some convection moving in to SE quadrant.

0515	Anvil dissipating and new cells are far away. Switched to ClimoFar.  Better Vertical resolution on distant cells.

0741	Big old easterly wave approaching.  Cells  120km of S-pol
	getting closer from East.  Some short-lived stronger cellsw 	embedded in stratiform up to 14km AGL.  Mostly in SE quadrant 	still.

0800	New set of cells popped 60km to the South.  Already up to 14 deg elevation.  Switched to ClimoNear.

0924	Widely scattered cells now poppin all around radar, both on land and ocean.  I think we are in ClimoNear for good.

0956	Rain at S-Pol. Land breeze front lighting up to West of S-Pol.  Not toppin g this line.  Some tops to 16km.

1054	Quite a nice lineup - possible microscan?  Too close too wide. Tops to 17km.

1103	Went outside to look - even though it's dark can see interesting cloud structure.  Rain gauge is coated with drops on the inside, but no measureable amount at the bottom.

1200  Sarah and Gustavo here.  Convective line moviong westward and breaking up.  Stay in ClimNear to top it (produced a nice lightning show on our drifve to radar ~20-3- flash/min)

1400	Radar echo passed slightloy over radar, but yielded no precipitation.l  Visual obs identified the feature as a shallow line of convection, non-p0recipitating within visual range.

1500	All echos  below 14deg.  Switched to ClimoFar.

1515	Switched back to ClimoNear.  A cell with reflectivities greater than 40dBZ appeared less than 20km from S-pol.  IQ froze.  Rebooted.

1655	passage of gust front over S-Pol.  Winds SE at 17mph, light preccip started (misty with the wind)

1706	rainfallbegan - moderate

1708	heavy rain! :)  winds ~20mph

1730	light rain at radar so ran a vertical scan for zdr calibration.

1734	Started profiler sequence some rain over profiler station and already in NAME-prof. scan.  (Stayed in Low PRF)

1743	Stopped profiler scan early to restart and load ClimoNear.

1745	Started ClimoNear

1747	mean zdr bias - 0.08dB

1750	Nesbit here

1800	Switched to profiler again: MCS that moved over S-Pol is nearing NOAA profiler

1815	Switched back to ClimoNear - small slice of .8deg scan missing from antenna movement from end of RHI to beginning of .8 PPI 
(~330-350deg az)

1830	Switched back to one more profiler (1st 2 the main line of heavy rain still wasn't quite there... the system seemed to slow after it passed over us.  So our 'forecasts' were ahead of schedule)  (Rain guage: 0.65")

1845	Switched back to ClimoNear Steve ran another PPI at the end of profiler scans to get antenna back to low el Angle so we wouldn't lose another segment of the first .8deg PPI ... however, the whole .8 swp is missing now.?  Let's hope it's on tape though!?  Gone, according to Sellis  -> data recording proglem!!

1918 	MCS Propagating N-ward, precip coverage over most of domain to E.  Nice bright band throughout stratifom region.

1941	Noted phase shift fold at 1741

2055	Original MCS dying (in termsw of convection) but convect5ion has built along the SMOL to the North.  Some convection still to the East of the radar too, unorganized and shallow.

2257	Going to ClimoFar - anvil has finally left the area!  Storms have fired again above 2000m and may6 make it down here for another round later.

0047	Cells to West are slowly collapsing watching to see if ClimNear will be needed -> yes  will do that next scan.  MCS to NW finally leaving scope.  Some strong cells to SE@ >160km range; heading for coast

0300	James Done and David  arrived

0500	Raining at site  Stratiform precipitation associated with multicell activity travilling NW (missed Mazatlan area)  Scattered activity over Northern SMOL (popcorn convection)  More cells now along the SMO range in the radar domain.

0600	Line of cells formed to the North of radar site over the4 coastal plain.  and more cells triggering over the SW radar domain over high orography.  

0615	Ran the profiler sequence during Stratiform precipitation

0630	Back to ClimoNear