Combined Wind Profiler/Polarimetric Radar Studies of the Vertical Motion and Microphysical Characteristics of Tropical Sea-Breeze Thunderstorms

• DOI: 10.1175/1520-0493(2002)130<2228:cwpprs>2.0.co;2
• Publication Date: 2002-10-01T21:37:52Z
• Authors: Peter T. May; A. R. Jameson; Thomas D. Keenan; Paul E. Johnston; Chris Lucas
• Keywords: Wind profiler

An experiment combining wind profiler and polarimetric radar analyses of intense, but shallow, tropical thunderstorms has been performed. These storms are important as they very common along many coasts islands sometimes the precursors to large intense multicellular such occur over Tiwi Islands north Darwin, Australia. All sampled had a similar structure, with updrafts on periphery cells producing significant-sized hail downdrafts in storm center. The concentrations relatively small, have effect reflectivity measurands because size (10–20 mm). It is this melting that produces characteristic ZDR columns data.