Case: 02 December 2022

Summary

Event with precipitating open-cell cumulus that transition towards more closed behaviors

Description

This was a hybrid cloud case that blends aspects of primarily open and some closed-cellular behaviors across the Azores region. Associated winds were predominantly northerly and modest (>25 kts) throughout this event. Cloud echo tops in the more intense cells were observed to be as much as 1 km above the ambient melting level (1.5 km AGL) for this event. Open-cell characteristics tended to be most prominent over the ENA main site during the daytime hours of this event.

Available assets

Standard ARM profiling assets, SEVIRI, SACR, RLPROF-FEX. Event was missing the 2330 UTC radiosonde on December 2nd

Critical period: 06:00–15:00

Open-cell cumulus conditions over the ENA main site

True-color MODIS Aqua — Figure 44 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.