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.