16 August 2004 0000 Convection perilously close to profiler site, but it is out of commission. 0021 Convection can best be thought of as breaking up from linear configuration into several smaller multicellular systems, most with a gradual oceanward motion. 0032 The system now resembles a loosely organized LLTS MCS, with the stratiform rain situated well to the east of the leading line. The line consists of remnants from the sea brz front convection (still looking pretty good), and the stratiform region is the remnants of the mtn convection, which is dying out with the setting sun. Since the two sections (convective & stratiform) are not really linked dynamically, that accounts for the loose organization. I would not actually call this a true LLTS MCS. 0045 Fine line visible out over the water in the southern portion of this system (also visible in 2 km vis sat imagery), which itself is getting over the water as well. Convective line should be hitting S-Pol soon. 0101 Moderate to heavy rain at S-Pol now. Some really intense phase shifts through northern portion of line, due to its favorable position along a radial. 0113 Running vertically pointing data on the light rain at S-Pol now. 0117 Restarted ClimoNear, 2 mins late due to VP scans. Will manually resync at 0130. Really nice looking gust front ahead of system now, along most of its length. 0120 Have heard some thunder and seen a bit of lightning, but I would not characterize this system as electrically active. 0123 Overall, the convective line has shrunk in length as this system evolved. 0130 Resynched. Cut off part of the 26.4 deg scan, so not too much lost in the name of Zdr calibration. My interpretation of what happened is that the current system resulted from convection blowing up along the sea breeze front, which then fired off more convection along its gust front that headed out to sea. The eastward pace of the sea brz convection was much slower than the rapid westward propagation along the later gust front. This is apparent in both S-Pol and GOES vis loops. 0140 Rain pickingup again at S-Pol. 0149 *sigh* Woulda made a great profiler case ... 0208 CIDDS display suggests a good reason why there is fairly little lightning in this system - not a lot of strong echo above the frz level. Still lite rain at S-Pol. 0217 Spotted a bit of spider lightning thru the moderate rain at S-Pol. We still got this whole chunk of stratiform rain over the mtns if it ever decides to head out to sea. 0220 Main convective portion of system looking increasingly messy and disorganized over the ocean, although there has been new development to the north. 0233 Switching PRFs for sectors now that rain map is finished. Will focus on the remnants of the line, which are now over the ocean and finally favorably placed for sectors. 0235 Running NearPPI135 as a separate scan until 0245 sync. Particle ID suggests mostly light to moderate rain at sfc, with some spots of hvy rain. 0240 Manual restart of NearPPI135 after everything outside of 30 km was topped. 0245 MicroNear135 sequence begun. RHIs to northern portion of oceanic storm. There is a tremendous amount of stratiform rain coverage over the eastern mtns. 0254 Closest convection really piddling out into strat rain - now main convection is the northern storm, which is detahced from the original line. 0300 MicroFar135 to better cover northern system. Will also cover strong cells far to the NNW, near edge of scope. 0315 MicroFar90 on NW quadrant for better temporal resolution. Storms still look pretty decent in CIDDS, though they are a ways away. 0334 Overall trend has been toward further weakening of existing convection. 0342 Switching back to 720 Hz. Two 90 deg vols completed this sequence. 0345 ClimoFar. 0400 James Done arrives Extensive region of stratiform precipitation in the 60 to 150degree sector. Convection remains active in the 300-360 sector beyond 120km from the radar. 0445 Convection north of the radar remains active 55-60dBZ at 6km. 16km deep. Tracking west, trailing stratiform. 0515 Convection entering the southern radar scope, just offshore. Part of a larger system - IR imagery shows -80C shield. 0545 Switched to climoshallow because the only echoes at elevation angles greater than 6.7degrees were broken decaying stratiform pieces. The system to the north remains convective feeding the stratiform region. 0750 The only echoes in the radar scope are from the decaying stratiform region to the north of the radar. 0933 Not much out there now, not even the traditional land-breeze front. Maybe the ouflow boundary from this early evening's convective line removed any land-sea contrasts. 1208 Brenda Dolan here. Not much out there, just a small system ~180km SW. 1252 Zebu froze. Rebooted. 1327 Pretty quiet out there. Some small stuff out over the ocean, about 150km out. 1335 Something isn't quite right about this scan...the antenna seems to be stopped for an excessive amount of time, so we will see if it resyncs at 1345 1345 The antenna resynched. 1359 Starting to see more convection popping up over the ocean; too far out to do microphysical scans. Will keep an eye on it and stay in ClimoShallow for now. 1426 Not seeing the fine lines/land-breeze front over the ocean nearly as much as yesterday, as James noted. 1517 There is some sort of line appearing in the 0deg scan over the ocean (range ~150km West) along which the (weak) convection is firing. Can see the line in the vis satellite data; the fine line extends much beyond our scope. Looks like it passes right through where the Altair was stationed! 1543 The line is moving NE. There is also some stuff >150km to the south that looks to be organizing into something more than popcorn-type convection. 1615 Had some 'visitors' (cows) that we had to shoo away because they were scratching the satellite dish and pulled up one of the lightning rods. Was this in our job description? ;) 1628 Things are pretty much dead. 1738 There is some convection to the south <120km, as well as some stuff starting to pop up in the mountains, so I will switch to ClimoFar at the next opportunity. 1745 Changed to ClimoFar mode. 1804 There is a nice cell SSE at a range of ~100km. It has core reflectivities in the upper 40's. The popcorn convection is starting to show up over the mountains, just as it did yesterday. Will remain in ClimoFar for the moment. 1901 the convection over the mountains is becoming more organized.It's hard to determine the propogation direction, but it looks to be east again. One lone cell to the SSE of SPOL at a range of ~100km. It has a core of around 45dBZ. Will make sure we are topping this one with ClimoFar. 2015 Lang here. S-Pol folks checking out the test pulse, which shows some funky stuff on H power. Radar still operates in ClimoFar. 2100 ClimoNear to cover cell to SE, ~30 km from radar. Everthing out there is pretty garden variety, so vertical resolution on far convection not a big concern. Situation qualitatively similar to yesterday, with diurnal mtn convection and some limited coastal convection along the sea brz front, plus a random cell or two over the sea. However, we are quite far from hell breaking loose at this point. 2218 Overall, echo coverage has been increasing this past hour. The sea breeze front and mtn convection are the main activity centers. There is also the occasional cell on the convergence line out at sea. 2246 Nice little linear MCS popping up well to the SE. Started over the mountains. 2315 ClimoFar. Why? Because I can! Actually, to cover the far convection better, given it is more interesting than the near stuff. Besides, all but one cell within 30 km to the NE will be topped anyway. The sea breeze convection has as yet failed to do much, and the most interesting thing on the scope is the small mtn MCS far to our SE. 2345 Back to ClimoNear due to increased cell activity close by to our NE.