Case: 07 September 2019

Summary

Closed stratocumulus cloud event that gradually thinned and transitioned to broken conditions

Description

This was a majority closed cell stratocumulus deck event having relatively continuous coverage throughout its overnight into daytime hours. There was a gradual dissipation of the closed deck towards broken and/or thinned deck conditions. This transition started over the Azores by around 12 UTC, with some suggestions of a continuous and/or thicker deck reforming by the end of the event. Winds for this event were primarily out of the east.

Available assets

Standard ARM profiling assets, SEVIRI. RLPROF-FEX

Critical period: 12:00-15:00

Closed, thicker deck over the ENA site begins to thin and break

True color MODIS AQUA

Figure 66 True color afternoon MODIS AQUA image with overlaid LES domains. The image area corresponds to the 5° region sampled for the larger forcing option. The yellow and orange boxes correspond to the sizes of the 25 km and 102 km LES domains, respectively.