Diagnosis of an Amplifying and Decaying Baroclinic Wave Using Wind Profiler Data

Abstract

Kinematic and thermodynamic quantities derived from wind profiler triangles are used to help describe the structure of both an amplifying and decaying baroclinic wave as they traversed portions of the wind profiler demonstration network. The data provide excellent diagnoses of the cyclogenetic processes associated with the amplifying system and the cyclolytic processes associated with the decaying system. The importance of a baroclinic wave's vertical tilt and the associated profiler-derived advective patterns of the systems as they relate to surface evolution are shown to be consistent with conceptual models of baroclinic waves. These structural aspects of the observed baroclinic waves are also shown to vary substantially on short timescales. In addition, a sub-synoptic-scale feature associated with a severe convective event that developed ahead of the decaying wave trough axis was observed quite well by the profiler network. This feature's detection was dependent on the high temporal resolution of the profiler data and was not detectable with data provided by the rawinsonde network.