Figure 10: Schematic of (a) horizontal and (b) vertical MCS cross-sections for experiment Option IIc.

Option IIc:

Goal: Document mesoscale wind fields, microphysical sampling

Aircraft: The P-3 will conduct a series of line-normal flight legs at various altitudes to document spatial distributions of raindrop (Option 1) and ice (Option 2) hydrometeor characteristics in the stratiform region. These flight legs will be flown at 5 and 10 kft (Option 1) and 18 and 23 kft (Option 2), respectively. Tail Doppler radar data will be collected in FAST-continuous mode during the flight legs. A two minute "purl" pattern will be conducted near the center of each flight leg to document the mesoscale vertical motion structure and hydrometeor fallspeed profile.

Mobile Labs: The mobile labs are not required for this experiment.

Cimarron: Cimarron will collect data in PPI mode when the P-3 is flying line-normal legs that are not along a Cimarron radial and RHI mode when the P-3 is flying along a Cimarron radial. Specific Cimarron scanning strategies are presented in Section 6.

Notes: These flight patterns may occasionally be coordinated with balloon-borne EFM launches.