Kinematic and microphysical analysis of the 10 January 2011 north Alabama thundersnow event during PLOWS

During 9-10 January 2011, a winter cyclone traversed the northern Gulf Coast producing significant snowfall amounts across much of the Southeastern U.S. with particularly heavy amounts of 15-25 cm across northern Alabama. Large aggregates in excess of 3 cm and lightning were observed during a Profiling of Winter Storms field project intensive observation period within the UAHuntsville/NSSTC THOR Center and Hazardous Weather Testbed, which includes the KHTX WSR-88D, the Advanced Radar for Meteorological and Operational Research (ARMOR) C-band radar, the Mobile Alabama X-band (MAX) radar, the North Alabama Lightning Mapping Array (NALMA), as well as the instrument suite on board the Mobile Integrated Profiling System (MIPS). Balloon soundings were acquired from the MIPS site at 3-hr intervals. Dual-polarimetric radar observations indicated distinct layering with height in reflectivity factor, radial velocity, spectrum width, and differential reflectivity. Kelvin-Helmoltz waves were also evident above 5 km from ~5 minute temporal resolution RHI scans from ARMOR and 6 Hz sampling from the MIPS vertically-pointing X-band profiling radar (XPR). Lower-level wave features propagating across the region were also observed in radar and surface pressure data, which were associated with an increase in liquid water content indicated by the MIPS microwave profiling radiometer (MPR). Analysis of the kinematic structure of the snow event through the use of multiple Doppler syntheses and microphysical analysis from both C-band and X-band polarimetric radar data, integrated with the vertically pointing radar data, will be presented.