Analysis of the 5 July 2015 Nocturnal Convective Initiation Event During the PECAN Field Campaign

During the summer of 2015, a group of universities and other collaborative organizations came together to study nighttime thunderstorms under the National Science Foundation's PECAN (Plains Elevated Convection At Night) field campaign. One of the key parameters studied during this campaign was the initiation of nocturnal convection. On the night of 5 July 2015, UAH's Mobile Integrated Profiling System (MIPS) was deployed in southeastern South Dakota ahead of an mesoscale convective system (MCS) and within a stable boundary layer (BL). As the MCS approached the deployment site, it began to weaken while a boundary observed on radar propagated outward from the MCS. This boundary was a bore with a 2.5 hPa pressure rise that moved into the stable BL. The bore destabilized the BL enough to lead to a widespread linear area of nocturnal convective initiation (NCI) perpendicular to the weakening MCS. This convection soon organized into a well developed MCS. In this presentation, we conduct an in-depth analysis of the atmosphere before, during, and after the MCS passage. We investigate the mechanisms of the NCI that preceded the primary MCS.