Mesovortex Circulations Seen by Airborne Doppler Radar within a Bow-Echo Mesoscale Convective System

Abstract

Abstract During the spring of 1991, scientists from the National Severe Storms Laboratory conducted a field observational program to obtain a better understanding of the processes responsible for organizing and maintaining the dynamical and electrical structure of mesoscale convective systems (MCSs), as well as mechanisms acting to organize and propagate the dryline. Extensive use was made of a relatively new observing tool, the airborne Doppler radar installed on one of the NOAA P-3 research aircraft, to map the precipitation and kinematic structure of large convective systems. The radar was operated in an innovative scanning mode in order to collect pseudo dual-Doppler wind data from a straightline flight path. This scanning method, termed the fore/aft scanning technique (FAST), effectively maps out the three-dimensional wind field over mesoscale domains (e.g., 80 km× 100 km) in ∼15 min with horizontal data spacing of 1–2 km. Several MCSs were observed over central Oklahoma during May and June of 1991, ...