Orographic precipitation in the New Zealand Southern Alps: New insight from a recent field campaign

The DEEPWAVE field project in June and July 2014 provides unprecedented insight into tropospheric conditions over the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Not since the third phase of the New Zealand Southern Alps Experiment (SALPEX) in 1996 has the region been subject to such an extensive observational campaign. The DEEPWAVE observations include a downward pointing wind lidar onboard the German Falcon (flight level of z=13 km), the new Gulfstream V Automated Dropsonde System, ground-based radar upwind and downwind of the Southern Alps, daily balloon soundings from multiple locations and an extensive rain gauge network. The availability of these observations has motivated an ancillary project to DEEPWAVE that examines air mass transformation over the Southern Alps and its relationship to orographic precipitation. Multiple case studies will be presented, along with quantitative insight into the Alpine drying ratio (the fraction of water vapor removed from the airflow) and the role of convection in midlatitude orographic precipitation, among other things.