Supercooled drizzle development in response to semi-coherent vertical velocity fluctuations within an orographic-layer cloud

Majewski, Adam; French, Jeffrey R.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-5035-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-5035-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-5035-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 8

Research article

|

28 Apr 2020

Research article |

| 28 Apr 2020

Supercooled drizzle development in response to semi-coherent vertical velocity fluctuations within an orographic-layer cloud

Adam Majewski and Jeffrey R. French

Data sets

UW King Air Hydrometeor Size Spectra from SNOWIE Jeffrey R. French and Adam Majewski https://doi.org/10.5065/D6GT5KXK

UW King Air Wyoming Cloud Radar Data from SNOWIE University of Wyoming - Research Flight Center https://doi.org/10.15786/M2MW9F

Wyoming Cloud Radar data from the University of Wyoming King Air during the University of Wyoming King Air during the Seeded and Natural Orographic Wintertime clouds-the Idaho Experiment (SNOWIE) project S. Haimov and A. Tripp https://doi.org/10.15786/M2CD4J

Short summary

The study reports formation of supercooled drizzle drops in response to repeating kilometer-wide updrafts and downdrafts within a mixed-phase, mountain-layer cloud containing very little ice despite cold cloud top temperatures (T ~ -30°C). The discrete, embedded hydrometeor growth layers and downwind transition to drizzle production at cloud top indicates the relative importance of kinematic mechanisms in determining the location of precipitation development in cloud.