A severe squall line system was observed over southeast Texas during 10 February 1998 by the Texas A&M Doppler radar, the Houston National Weather Service WSR-88D radar, and the TRMM satellite. This paper will discuss the structure of the squall line system as viewed by all 3 platforms with particular emphasis on the relationship between the passive microwave (emission and scattering frequencies) from the TRMM satellite and active microwave from the ground based radars. Comparison of the storm structure with the X-band Precipitation Radar (PR) on board the TRMM satellite will also be presented.
The observed relationships between the passive and active microwave signatures will also be discussed in view of results from numerical simulations of a squall line system. Here we will examine the vertical structure of the hydrometeors produced by the model in relation to the brightness temperatures determined from a radiative flux calculation. This will help to tie together the spaceborne observations with storm-scale dynamics