Storm environments sampled in Texas and Oklahoma during the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) experiment

During the period of 15 May – 30 June 2012, numerous strong storms and convective systems were sampled over the three lightning mapping arrays (LMAs) stretching southwestward from central and southwest Oklahoma to west of Lubbock, Texas as part of the recently completed field phase of the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) experiment. One of the key objectives of DC3 is to relate cloud electrification to NOx production in the upper troposphere. To understand the variability in cloud electrification associated with storm dynamics and environmental thermodynamic characteristics that affect microphysical processes that are associated with cloud electrification, storm-following environmental inflow soundings were obtained along with separate in-storm electric field meter and particle imager soundings and deployments of mobile Doppler and dual-polarimetric radars. Thirteen convective systems were sampled over the Texas-Oklahoma domain, including two tornadic supercell thunderstorms, three non-tornadic supercells (one of which was a low-precipitation storm), and several multicell convective systems.

In this presentation, we will provide an overview of the near-environments of the sampled storm systems. Particular emphasis will be placed on environmental characteristics associated with convection initiation (CI) and the discrimination between multicell and supercell storm modes. We will attempt to place our DC3 sounding observations in the context of previous studies relating CI and storm mode to proximity environmental sounding properties.

This presentation is one of a series of three poster presentations on collaborative DC3 observations that we ask be grouped together.