CAMEX-3/TEFLUN-B POST FLIGHT WEATHER SYNOPSIS - 980815

Today it rained little in the S-POL domain, except for some local downpours. This is because the convection was short-lived and small, leaving behind only small and rapidly collapsing stratiform regions with high cloud bases. The 10 UTC UCF-sounding shows little wind aloft, mainly westerly at all levels. Deep convection developed near Tampa around 15:30 UTC and outflow boundaries from these storms propagated with the prevailing flow towards the east. These outflow boundaries triggered deep convection in the northwestern corner of the S-POL domain. North of Orlando there was more westerly flow, as evidenced by storm motion. This deep convection was short-lived and cells continued to pop up and decay without broad mushrooming and without leaving behind any significant stratiform region.

Leg 1 flown by both DC-8 and ER-2 went through a rapidly decaying stratiform region, seen as an anvil in the visible sat imagery. Its remnants can be seen at 21:57 UTC at 29N, 81.5W. Legs 2-3 went over to the east towards a narrow stratiform region resulting from some east-coast sea breeze convection near 29.2N, 81.0W.

The convergence of two boundaries, one from the west (sea breeze or convective outflow ??) and the other the east coast sea breeze, can be seen in radar imagery, between 28 and 29N, just west of 81W. The confluence started to the north and progressed southward, and it triggered a line of storm cells, as seen in this visible image. This 'zipper' line expanded southward in discrete steps, and the convection quickly collapsed onto itself, leaving behind symmetrically spreading outflow boundaries, and a thin anvil. The ER-2 flew its last leg over this line while the DC-8 completed some calibration work offshore.

The 20:00 UTC sounding at the NOAA AL profiler site was taken in the warm air between the two converging boundaries (the zipper) but it failed to record wind and aborted early, so the recorded CAPE value is dubious. Compare to the 22:00 UTC sounding at the same site. At Cape Canaveral, an extra sounding @20:00 UTC was taken.

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