Case: 02 July 2016

Summary

Widespread stratocumulus clouds under southerly boundary layer flows

Description

This event featured a drizzling and widespread stratocumulus deck. Early on during this event there were signs of deck thinning and erosion, however the deck was relatively resilient. The most intense drizzle sequences were observed during the first half of this event, with signs of isolated and/or open cell structures and light rain found towards the tail end of this event. The boundary layer flow gradually shifted from northerly to easterly as this event progressed. Inversion height at approximately 1.2 km AGL.

Available assets

Standard ARM profiling assets, SEVIRI, additional NPOESS validation radiosonde (03:00 UTC)

Critical period: 13:00–17:00

Brief signatures of the stratocumulus deck dissipating, then re-establishing

True color MODIS AQUA — Figure 6 True color afternoon MODIS AQUA image with overlaid LES domains. The image domain corresponds to the size of the model forcing domain.