Winter storms over the San Juan Mountains. Part II: microphysical processes.

Abstract

Airborne observations of wintertime storms in SE Colorado have shown that the microphysical structure of those storms evolved in close relationship to the dynamical structure. The storms evolved from deep synoptic-scale systems to shallower orographic systems, and in the course of this evolution became unstable. During early storm stages the precipitation developed primarily by diffusional growth of ice crystals, but during later storm stages accretional growth was at least as important as diffusional growth. -from Authors