A Mesoscale Budget Study of Cumulus Convection

Abstract

Water and energy budgets are presented for four broad classes of summertime cumulus convection. The budgets are calculated from National Hail Research Experiment rawinsonde data. The convection classifications are based on radar and precipitation data. A derivation of the budget equation is presented in order to point out two terms that are related to the rapid time changes and large horizontal gradients that sometimes occur over the budget area. Weak, moderate and precipitating classes of convection produced apparent sources of water and energy that are generally similar to the results of other budget studies based on oceanic and/or tropical data. The results for the developing class of convection demonstrate that a cloud storage term must be included when studying convection that is rapidly changing from weak to moderate or precipitating.