Environmental parameters such as the M index, lower tropospheric stability (LTS), and estimated inversion strength (EIS) were calculated using ground-based observations. Microphysical properties such as cloud number concentration Nd, cloud effective radius Re and water/ice contents were retrieved using ground-based measurements using varying retrieval methodologies depending on whether ice or water was present and depending on whether the clouds were precipitating. The use of different retrieval algorithms using different measurements is also used to create an ensemble of solutions to quantify uncertainties. The correlations between vertical cloud structures, cloud phase distributions, BL vertical structures, and cloud microphysical properties with different environmental parameters are presented. On average, MARCUS had stronger BL inversions compared to COMBLE. The mean EIS (LTS) value for MARCUS was 0.17K (13.22K), which was higher than calculated values of -3.65K (8.96K) for COMBLE. 556 hours of CAOs were observed during COMBLE, of which 39% were intense CAOs with an M index > 5K. There were 380 hours of CAOs during MARCUS, with only 1% having M > 5K. However, MARCUS observed a moisture-rich BL structure with a relative humidity of nearly 100% during intense CAOs. 94.3% (66.9%) of clouds sampled in CAOs during COMBLE (MARCUS) had a cloud top height < 4km. During non-CAOs, clouds sampled during MARCUS were more turbulent than COMBLE, with an averaged radar spectral width of 0.22 ms-1 compared to 0.19 ms-1. Single-layer BL clouds sampled during MARCUS were more ice dominated at their bases/tops compared to COMBLE.

