A primary scientific objective of the Profiling of Winter Storms (PLOWS) project is to determine the instabilities and types of mesoscale forcing that control the generation and evolution of precipitation substructures. Some examples of the possible controls observed and studied during the 2009, 2010, and 2011 winter field campaigns include moist CSI, moist frontogenesis, gravity waves, and elevated upright convection.

This study utilizes integrated observations from multiple intensive observation periods during PLOWS to delineate and analyze mesoscale gravity waves, Kelvin-Helmhotz waves, and regions of convective snow in winter cyclones. The high resolution measurements were obtained primarily from integrated instrumentation of the Mobile Integrated Profiling System (MIPS), which includes a ceilometer, 12-channel microwave profiling radiometer (MPR), 915 MHz Doppler wind profiler, vertically pointing X-band radar (XPR), and standard surface meteorological measurements of temperature, dewpoint, wind speed and direction, and atmospheric pressure. Data from the Mobile Alabama X-band (MAX) and ARMOR C-band dual polarization radars, as well as various National Weather Service WSR-88D S-band radars were also utilized in this analysis. Additional profiling measurements were obtained from the NCAR Mobile Integrated Sounding System (MISS) and soundings were taken at the MIPS location by the University of Missouri and the University of Alabama in Huntsville sounding systems for comparison with MIPS profiling data. This analysis will focus particularly on the impact of atmospheric waves on precipitation substructures and possible enhancement of supercooled liquid water, a kinematic analysis through the use of multiple Doppler syntheses, microphysical analysis from polarimetric radar data, as well as description of instabilities associated with convective snow in selected winter cyclones.