Case: 02 May 2018

Summary

Closed stratocumulus deck that gradually thinned throughout the day

Description

This was an extended closed stratocumulus event that formed along a relatively narrow (200 km) west-east band that included the Azores archipelago and ARM ENA main site. Drizzling stratocumulus persisted throughout the overnight hours and thinned during the daytime hours before partially dissipating into the afternoon hours. A thin and partially broken stratocumulus cloud deck remained throughout the remainder of this event over the ENA main site. Light low-level winds began northerly and shifted easterly throughout this event. Cloud echo top was observed at approximately 1.0 km AGL, and this cloud top gradually lowered throughout the event.

Available assets

Standard ARM profiling assets, SEVIRI. SACR. RLPROF-FEX. Only one radiosonde is available for this date (1130 UTC)

Critical period: 01:00-05:00

Drizzling stratocumulus with subcloud precipitation reaching the surface

Figure 55 True color afternoon MODIS AQUA image with overlaid LES domains. The image domain corresponds to the size of the model forcing domain.