Observation of a Cold Front With Rope Cloud

Abstract

Observations are presented of a cold front which passed over the Florida peninsula and produced a rope cloud visible on satellite imagery. The low level structure of the leading edge of the front is revealed with data from the 150 m tower at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It is shown that the leading edge of the front is very similar to thunderstorm gust fronts and the speed is predicted well by the gust front speed equation. This indicates that the rope cloud is directly analogous to the arc cloud sometimes observed along thunderstorm gust fronts. Further, the rope cloud appears to be a less intense manifestation of the forced convection that produces the narrow cold?frontal rainbands observed in some other cold front studies.