Bright and earlier on the morning of August 7, with a soothing partly cloudy sky, many of the OTREC members began our day together hovering over our laptops with coffee in hand. Above us and to the south, NCAR/NSF Gulfstream V flies fitted with dropsondes, NCAR’s W-band radar, and full of eager OTREC members. From about 6:30a.m. to 12:00p.m., the Gulfstream V collected data according to its flight pattern (detailed in figure 1) while the scientists on the ground sifted through the incoming data and discussed it.
Figure 1: OTREC B2 GV Flight Plan
We were excited to have a mesoscale convective system propagating westward through the flight pattern. Together, both students and researchers went through multiple radar images and skew-T plots from the dropsondes (like weather balloons, but dropped from above instead of launched from below), discussing any notable information, and teaching tips on reading these images. In later posts, we will show some skew-T plots and explain what they are and how to read them!
Having our first flight be successful (in terms of having a convective storm to fly through with good data collected) was cause for celebration! We celebrated the best way a group of scientists could: with a weather briefing! Our next flight is scheduled for August 11.
If you are interested in looking at all of the collected data, please visit our field catalog. More to come soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment