Daily Summary for 9 November 2006

A weak cold front moved across the region during the day associated with a low over Northern Quebec. The system provided a variety of cloud cover from drizzling low stratus, deep nimbostratus with large raindrops, patches of thin altocumulus and some cirrus.

Pictures taken during the flight by Curtis Seaman:

The C3VP mission today targeted the heart of a weak cold front. There were areas of precipitation and a lot of ice cloud around. On the way home there were small patches of CLEX cloud that we managed to porpoise through (~.15 g/m3 peak lwc). That gave way to only a lower Cu field that bounced us around on the way back to Ottawa. There is a reasonable chance that the clouds present during the CloudSat overpass had liquid near cloud top (that we could not get up to in time).

Note: Kevin Strawbridge's lidar was not operating today. The presence of nothing but deep clouds, with no chance of flying above or below at a distance of 500 m away prevented him from running the instrument without burning out the sensors.

Below is a MODIS IR image and CloudSat swath during the overpass.