An Overview of Spring 2018 VORTEX-SE Observations in North Louisiana

The NOAA VORTEX-SE program collected observations between 1 March and 15 April 2018 during a mini field experiment in two domains: (1) the location in northern Alabama which has been a focus for the past field experiments, and (2) a new domain in northern Louisiana, anchored by the University of Louisiana Monroe’s (ULM) polarimetric S-band Doppler radar (KULM) and radiosonde systems. By having two domains, the chances of observing severe convective weather were increased, in addition to providing observations in two contrasting regions. This presentation will focus on those observations in north Louisiana collected by the following platforms: (1) the NOAA P-3 aircraft, with its X-band dual tail Doppler radars (TDRs), the upgraded C-band lower fuselage radar, a Compact Raman Lidar (CRL), and in-situ thermodynamic and hydrometeor sensors; (2) two University of Oklahoma (OU) C-band Shared Mobile Atmospheric Research and Teaching (SMART) radars; (3) the KULM radar; and (4) two ULM iMet radiosonde systems. The objectives of the spring 2018 field experiment were to collect observations to support: (1) technique development for the integration of airborne and ground-based radars, specifically for multi-Doppler wind syntheses, and determining the ability to produce quality Velocity-Azimuth Display (VAD) wind profiles; (2) improve coordination between aircraft operations and scanning strategies for ground-based radars; and (3) improve knowledge of mesoscale heterogeneity scales that promote tornadogenesis as a function of storm lifecycle.

Four observational periods occurred in the north Louisiana domain (10 March, 28 March, 6 April, and 13 April), and data were collected for a variety of severe and non-severe convective systems. Approximately 28 tornadoes occurred within the domain during the four observational periods: 3 EF-1 tornadoes on 28 March, 2 EF-0 tornadoes on 6 April, and 23 tornadoes on 13 April. However, given that instruments remain approximately fixed, not all tornadoes or convective systems occurred within close enough range to promote high-quality analyses. The primary purpose of this presentation is to give an overview of the observations collected in north Louisiana during the spring 2018 VORTEX-SE experiment. These data will eventually be available to the severe storms community via the NCAR EOL catalog, and as such, this presentation will also assess the overall quality of the datasets.