Observations of Quasi-Stationary and Shallow Orographic Snow Clouds: Spatial Distributions of Supercooled Liquid Water and Snow Particles

Abstract

On 25 February 1999, due to a winter monsoon after a cyclonic storm, orographic snow clouds formed under conditions of weak cold advection on the western side of the central mountain range of Japan. In this study, the Ka-band Doppler radar and vehicle-mounted microwave radiometer and 2D-Grey imaging probe were used to obtain unique datasets for analyzing the spatial distributions of microphysical structures of the snow clouds at the windward slope. The liquid water path, number concentration of snow particles (0.1–6.4 mm diameter), and precipitation rate were found to be correlated with altitude. The greater concentration of larger particles tended to appear up the slope. The echo top was at about 2.5 km (−30 dBZ), and the relatively strong echo region (>−3 dBZ) appeared at 5 km up the slope and extended nearly parallel to the slope. According to the echo pattern, the ice water path increased with terrain height and reached the maximum intensity at about 14 km up the slope. These observations provide indirect evidence that terrain-induced updrafts lead to the generation and growth of supercooled cloud droplets and indicate that the riming process plays an important role in the growth of snow particles at higher altitudes. In this paper, it is confirmed that the abundance of supercooled liquid water (SLW) during intensified monsoon flow is due to larger water production rates caused by higher vertical velocities induced by topography. Furthermore, it can be shown that small-scale terrains enhance localized updrafts embedded within the larger-scale flow and have noticeable impact on SLW cloud distribution.