TORUS in the Clear Air: Pre-Convection Observations from an Airborne and Mobile Radar Perspective

The Targeted Observation by Radars and UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) of Supercells (TORUS) project is an ongoing collaborative research project funded by the National Science Foundation and NOAA. The first TORUS field season took place in May and June of 2019. Bringing more than 50 researchers from 7 institutions together in the field, TORUS deployed a wide-ranging suite of instruments in the field to observe supercell thunderstorms with the goal of improving the conceptual model of supercells and their relationship to boundaries in the context of tornadogenesis. While not directly connected to the main goals of the TORUS mission, multiple opportunities arose to collect observations of the pre-convection boundary layer with a robust armada of meteorological observation platforms including lidar, radars, UAS, manned aircraft, radiosondes, and mobile ground observations.

This presentation will offer an overview of two such deployments targeting drylines in the pre-convection boundary layer: 11 June 2019 and 14 June 2019. In each case, Doppler radars were deployed around a Doppler lidar and the ground armada near the dryline. NOXP collected data over the domain with the two TTU-Ka radars performing RHIs to sample the vertical profile of the convective boundary layer. The NOAA P3 aircraft also flew transect legs directly over the Doppler lidar position collecting Doppler radar data from the tail radar. These observations will be summarized to identify potential research questions for further analysis. In addition to motivating future research directions, these data also allow us to see the potential utility of collecting clear-air observations with platforms more typically used for severe weather applications.