This paper describes the first continuous observations of the vertical development of the summer sea breeze circulation at Cape Canaveral, Florida. These measurements were obtained using a commercial UHF wind profiling radar which collected 10 minute average winds with a vertical resolution of 100 m over the altitude range of 150 m to 2 km with a data collection efficiency of >90% during a five month period. The radar winds are found to be in excellent agreement with simultaneous high resolution radiosonde ascents under most conditions during the summer season.
The hourly mean wind profiles for an entire summer clearly show the strong diurnal modulation of the cross shore component from the surface to 2 km due to the sea breeze and the much weaker land breeze. Unexpected observations include a tendency for the maximum return flow velocity to precede the maximum sea breeze velocity and the presence of a distinct secondary onshore velocity maxima on many days around sunset just above ground level which deve