After many days of dry weather dominated by a ridge, a weak trough at
upper levels moved over the Ligurian Sea and into the region of northern
Italy in the vicinity of Genoa. The clouds accompanying the trough were
convective, but were organized by a cyclonic circulation with a dry slot
in the water vapor channel imagery circulating into the center of the system
(Fig.
1). The Electra took off from Innsbruck at about 1400 UTC, and flew
into the convective system. Data were collected with the ELDORA. At 1656
UTC, near 44 N, 9.6 E the Electra reported seeing stratiform precipitation
with a bright band at the 3 km level and occasional 45 dBZ cells embedded
in the stratiform precipitation. At the southeast end of the flight track
(Fig.
2), the Electra was in the northern edge of the strongest convection
seen on satellite (Fig.
3). After reaching this southeastern point the aircraft flew northwestward
to the western dual-Doppler region over the south slopes of the Alps (Fig.
2) where it observed the weak convective cells seen also by the S-Pol
radar (Fig.
4).
