Shane Mayor's field notes from LIFT. ==================================== 7-21-96, Sunday: Met Doppler lidar truck (Mike Platt) at 11 AM and drove to Monticello Road site. Parked and detached by noon. Rain began between 11 and 12. U of I electricians powered up Doppler trailer by 3 or 4 PM and left before DIAL truck arrived. We worked until about 9 PM to get DIAL trailer parked and lightning protection on Doppler trailer. 7-22-96, Monday: Continue setup of lidars. Issues to be addressed: Get UPS to run on 240 V. Hookup telephones. Gravel over mud. Install computers. Raise scanner for Doppler lidar. Get key for restroom. Get drinking water. Get PC modem working. Etc. Frush arrived 6 PM. 7-23-96, Tuesday: Turned diode pump module on for first time since shipping to Flatland. Right side failed at first start. Recycled power and both sides worked. Leveled trailer. Shot the sun. Azimuth and elevation are occasionally corrupted when AC kicks in. SABL installed. Very low level fog in AM - dissipated to mostly clear skies and afternoon cumulus. Very clean air and low SNR. Useless 2-micron Doppler data. 7-24-96, Wednesday: Rain this morning and clearing by 10 AM. AC in rear of Doppler trailer froze up. Heated trailer to thaw. Dew pt in trailer rose to 18 C during heating. Chuck and Herminio building protective bag over 2-micron laser to keep dry nitrogen around it. 7-25-96, Thursday: Sunrise at 5:45 AM. Arrived at lidar site at 7:35 AM. Back AC frosted up again. Dew point in trailer 14 C. Looking into getting pressure building cylinder of nitrogen to blow over 2-micron laser. Held meeting at 7 PM to discuss plans for operation tomorrow. 7-26-96, Friday: Sunrise at 5:47 AM. First official day of operation however data were very poor. Arrived at lidar site at 7 AM. Clear skies, stable boundary layer this morning with hazy or slightly foggy conditions. We suspect we found the cause of the power drop: compressor in the diode pump module which is on the UPS circuit. We had the rear AC wired directly to the transformer anyway. Scanner had to be manually moved up (it was in a stalled position). Diode pump module took over 10 cycles of power on/off to get working. Right side failed repeatedly until we turned down the current before switching on. Most of haze appears to be below 200 m from RHI. Still very clear above that. SABL not seeing anything either. Started today with a couple 1 and 2 degree sector scans and then 2 280 degree RHIs. Then went into vertical stare at about 8:30 AM. Very poor SNR. Very low QSBUTs causing contaminated data. Bought tigon tubing and hardware today to run dry nitrogen over laser. Seeing inconsistent performance of lidar - `after glow' and QSBUT=0 etc. Sometime around 16:40 Z (11:40 CDT) a bus error occurred in the vxworks window. We ejected tape A and started tape B. SNR has been extremely low again today - can faintly see vertical motion and Zi - but it is extremely noisy with 2-micron system. Stopped taking data around 6 PM CDT. Sunset at 8:10 PM. 7-27-96, Saturday: Sunrise at 5:48 AM. Arrived at lidar site at 7 AM CDT. Not collecting data until around 9 AM CDT (14:00 Z). 1 decent RHI and PPI then went into vertical stare. Clouds at 5400 m AGL (altocumulus). Surface flow out of SW this morning. Continuous vertical data looking much better this morning. Was the focus adjusted? At 16:10 we noticed the time in the status window on the 2-micron console about 7 or 8 minutes slow. Hitting transmit button (which should sync it to GPS) had inconsistent results. Ron Richter looking into it. Stopped first tape at 18:03:24 GMT (12:03:24 CDT). Shooting sun. Adjusting azimuth by 0.05. Resumed recording at 18:29:30 after shooting sun. Ron noticed start sample set to 2,(16) should be 1 in 10. Changed at about 19:09 UTC. Weaker signals this afternoon, but CBL did grow and cloud cover increased substantially. Some decent, usable data, during mid-day. Cu developed fairly deep. Very light precip possible. 5:30 PM shutdown for 6:30 PM meeting. 7-28-96, Sunday: Decided to make today a down day because: 1) questionable weather, 2) 6 days of work thus far, 3) Yan not feeling well, 4) Christophs first day. Ron Richter worked on computer in morning. Craig worked on the 2-micron lidars 100-MHz amp in the afternoon. 7-29-96, Monday: Sunrise at 5:49 AM. Decided to make today a 'soft' down day because 1) questionable weather forecast and 2) Craig's diagnosis of 100-MHz amp. DIAL failed today. Am reminded that even as synoptic scale lows and fronts approach, more than likely conditions will be partly sunny with scattered convection. Visit to the synoptic lab shows ridge finally breaking down middle of nexm week (8-9 days MRF). Trof in east and ridge in west causing cooler and disturbed weather central and eastern US. Normally jet runs zonally in southern Canada, but this month has wave and is much farther south. Today started off sunny, but clouded over by noon. It sems that instead of "frontal passage" as I originally expected, the trof is very slow moving with convective impulses propagating along it. Expect it to clear the area by Wednesday. 22:55 Playing with focus. Sunset at 8:08 PM. 7-30-96, Tuesday: Decided to make today a scanning day. At about 13:50 Z starting a 35.5 PPI at 3 degrees per second. SABL has cloud base at 750-800 m. Nice low level stratocu deck formed. 100-MHz oscillator giving us problems again. Need liquid nitrogen. Running 2-micron lidar at less than 0.5 mJ/pulse at 200 Hz. 16:12 video having major problems. 12:18 CDT airport called us and wants us to shut off SABL. Chuck and Craig fixing 100-MHz problem. Herminio fixing video cable and rewiring back AC. Started using upper right corner of door on transformer as a pointing calibration target for the 2-micron lidar. 7-31-96, Wednesday: SCANNING DAY: 35.3 PPIs all day. Good CBL today with WNW flow. Chuck turned the 2-micron laser on this morning and made major improvements. Think we see trees at 348.03 az and 0.01 el. Peak at gate 40. Some scans beginning at 13:47. Started vertical stare at 14:46 Z. 15:39 Z starting 35.5 elevation PPI. 16:34 Chuck dropping temperature of crystal to 3 degrees C. According to Steve Oncley we are operating with the wrong lat and lon recorded. Correct position: 40.00847, -88.33056, 210.3 m. Chuck changed the Sun program on Shanes PC. 19:10 Z stopped scan to check position of transformer. 19:33 Z resumed PPIs with new solar cal using new lat/lon and using 35.3 (not 35.5) elevation angle. New position of transformer: 74.3503 and -1.809 20:10 Z 2-micron laser stopped. Suspect condensation. Chuck warming. 20:24 Z running again. 21:25 We are at about 3600 records in file 23. Higher cloud (above PBL) advecting overhead and it appears to have stunted the growth of cu beneath it. See photos. Chris Grund arrived today. 23:55:49 Z Stopped PPI to shoot the transformer. 23:58:08 Z resumed PPIs at 3degree/s. Note spotter scope blocking TR path for a few minutes. 00:40 Z laser shut down (Chris noted band at 750 m). Unable to get DAT drive on Polka to accept tape. Good CBL today with WNW flow. 08-01-96, Thursday: Vertical staring day (intensive) with 1-s dwell in AM and 2-s dwell in PM. 14:00 Z pointing vertical with very poor SNR. 15:00 Z cumulus 16:00 Z Chuck noticed camera box on scanner appears tilted slightly. I checked with level and it is off by "1/2 a bubble". 16:25 Z stopped file to check transformer (says file 32). 16:26 Z Resumed vertical stare (file 33, accidentally left spotting scope in TR path for a minute.) Depressed red button to turn motors off during stare. 16:46 Z short drop out (bad frequencies) 18:36 Z file 34 - vertical - 400 shot averages (2 s) NCP background has dropped - Why? Skies have become mostly overcast - cu grew a lot! 19:39:48 Z stopped SABL to test new software. Removed tape. 19:46:15 Z Started SABL with new tape and software - to do bkgrnd subtraction for display. 20:00 We are noticing a "clear" or low SNR layer from about 1800-2000 m, above is cloud base and below is good SNR. Key meteorological thing of interest today is that cu grew very thick and clustered this afternoon AND then cleared out. 00:27 (7:27 PM CDT) stopped the vertical stare. Smoke plume observed to the NW (301.0 azimuth) 08-02-96, Friday, VERTICAL (Intensive with all day RASS) 1-s dwell in AM and 2-s dwell in PM. Good CBL. Clear skies at dawn. Grund started lidar. Frush came in later. First thing was to shoot transformer. Doing RHIs at 13:00 Z (8:00 AM CDT) at 270 degrees azimuth. PPIs at 13:05 Z Weak NE flow at surface this morning, very low SNR indication of SW flow above (beyond 2 km at 45 degree elevation). 13:13 Z start vertical stare 13:30 Grund suggests doing shallow RHIs until ML rises above our minimum range. At 360 azimuth we are doing 0-10 degree elevation at 0.2 degrees/s. 14:15 Z (9:15 CDT) ML starting to rise above 500 m. (Finished 3rd roll of camera film and started 4th roll.) 15:39:30 Z stepped up to 2 s averages (dwells) on Doppler lidar Note: The mixed layer (ML) rose rather rapidly this morning around 9 AM. Developed excellent cumulus clouds. Lidar running very well. Chuck left today. Craig took afternoon off. Craig will replace flashlamp on SABL this evening. Yan returned and replacement laser for DIAL arrived today. 22:40 Z noticing interference. Stopped file and started new tape. First tape is labeled A. rebooted processor. Transmitter Ok. Went to horizontal to figure out problem. Nothing on mirrors. Turns out cirrus were contaminating background region from 300-360 words (9-10.8 km). 23:02 Back to vertical 23:05 checking position of transformer 23:07 return to vertical with no correction of pointing angles 00:00 ended vertical stare. Note: good cirrus data 08-03-96, Saturday: SCANNING, PPIs at 35.3. SABL down during AM. Good CBL. Arrived at lidar site before 7 AM. Clear skies (clearer than yesterday) with a tiny amount of fog near the surface. Craig broke flashtube off the SABL laser head last night so will need to work on it today. Shane started 2-micron lidar. Key to getting it to stay locked was finding LO level that was just right. Started with a few RHIs to the north, then 10 degree PPIs. 13:04 Z in PPI discovered spotting scope not removed from TR path. 13:07 Z started RHIs, 280 & 290 degrees (downwind) 0-10 degrees el. Watched low level jet collapse and mix with surface layer. 0.2 ele/s Extremely interesting case study. 14:20 Z started 35.3 PPIs; 200 pulse, 1-s dwells. Bob Banta experimenting with scan/sampling rates: 19:00 Z still at 35.3 PPI at 3 degrees/s; changing to 100 pulse (0.5 s) averages. 19:05 Z 100 pulse averages at 6 degrees per second at 35.3 degrees ele. 19:10 Z 200 pulse averages at 1 degree per second at 1 degree elevation. 120 degree RHI, 1 degree PPI. 19:40 Z 200 pulse, 1 degree per s averages, 35.3 degree PPIs. 01:41 Z stopped 35.3 degree PPIs to do RHI scans SABL shutdown at 8 PM CDT (sunset) Meteorological notes about today: cumulus clouds did develop. Cu onset was at 10:20 AM CDT. Conditions were much hazier and humid today. SE flow on backside of high pressure system. Obvious effect of turbulence in daytime PPIs when compared to evening scans which were much smoother. Top edge of BL became diffuse later than previous day. Shading effect noticed from higher clouds this afternoon. Cumulus clouds dissipated today without clustering and while Zi was still growing. Cloud free BL during evening. High thin spots of overcast. 08-04-96, Sunday: VERTICAL, DIAL working again. Doppler scans from 6-9 AM then vertical with breaks at 11:00 and 3:30. Good CBL. Arrived at lidar site at 5:00 AM CDT. Mostly clear skies. Did RHIs into wind (which was from 135-150 degrees) and a few cross-wind RHIs and low angle PPIs. Did this until 9 AM. Planning 9-11 AM vertical stare with DIAL; brief scans at 11 AM during DIAL laser rest, and then resume shortly after 11 AM for 11-3 PM vertical stare. Shot transformer this morning before sun came up. Used flashlight. Inner mirror on scanner fogged up at 12:00 Z. Grund blew interior air over it with small fan to keep it dry. Low level jet observed this morning 14 m above scanner and 40 m thick. Peak wind inside it about 7 m/s early. Yesterday's jet was at 85 m above scanner and 87 m thick. Winds below jet in both cases 1-2 m/s. This mornings scans were from 0-5 degrees elevation at 0.2 degrees/s. Started vertical at 9 AM CDT although mixing didn't rise above 300 m until 9:40 AM. Cumulus onset estimated 10-1020 AM CDT. Stopped vertical stare at 11:15 AM CDT. Did PPIs from 11:15 to 11:40 AM CDT. Back to vertical stare at 11:40 AM CDT. 18:09 changing aperature of SABL (closed then reopened) 18:11:34 back to original aperture on SABL 20:33 Z starting 1 degree PPI at 1 degree azimuth per second. 20:38 Z starting 10 degree PPI 20:44:45 Z starting 1 degree PPI 20:51 shooting transformer 20:54:10 Z back to vertical stare 20:56:26 removed spotting scope 22:05 Z background contaminated by cirrus (300-360 gates) Moved background region to 150-210 gates. 23:42 going to 400 pulse (2-s dwell) averages ML has become very calm. We suspect shearing. 00:08 Z started 10 degree PPIs at 1 degree per second. 00:14:45 started 1 degree PPIs 00:08 Waves (?) at 1400-1500 m on SABL Shutdown 8 PM CDT 08-05-96, Monday: sunrise at 5:56 AM. Sunset at 8:01 PM. Tammy and DOW arrived today. Worked on DOW in PM. Mixed scans on Doppler lidar until 11:30 today then vertical rest of day. Strong south wind. Grund started 2-micron at 5 AM. Operating by 5:40 AM CDT. Tape #1 has less than 1 hour of PPIs and RHIs 10:30 AM CDT cumulus onset - very small cu. Tape #2 had nothing, Tape #3 is good. Variety of scans by Banta and Grund during morning. 16:45 Chris shooting transformer 16:47:30 Z start vertical, 200 pulse, 1-s averages. Strong southerly wind at surface today. Some very torn cumulus but very few of them. Mostly clear, sunny, hot, humid conditions. 00:22 going to 400 pulse (2-s) average on the Doppler lidar. 08-06-96, Tuesday: VERTICAL, intensive, good CBL. sunrise at 5:57 AM CDT. Grund came to lidar site early (5:05 AM) Rebooted CPU - very unstable at first. Taking data at 5:40 AM - series of PPIs while tuning laser. Data much better by 6 AM. Drop outs at about 6:30 due to fogging of mirror. Jet observed at 60 m above scanner. 2.5 m/s flow at surface. 3.5 m/s flow at 340 m above scanner. Core at 112 m @ 11 m/s. 9:05 AM CDT convection poked above 300 m AGL. 9:24 AM vigorous convection died out. 11:00 AM cumulus onset 14:15 Z shooting transformer Started SABL and DIAL at about 9 AM CDT (14 Z). Video time running about 7 or 8 s slower than GPS. SABL not recording at end of day - 08-07-96, Wednesday: VERTICAL, Intensive with all day RASS, Good CBL with GUST FRONT case study in the afternoon. 5:04 AM Chris Grund arrived. 5:15 AM lidar running - did about an hours worth of PPIs and RHIs. about 7:15 AM real-time computer crashed. Grund notes that there is some speed and direction shear but not as pronounced as previous days. 09:02 AM began vertical stare 09:45 AM started seeing clouds/aerosol above 1 km. 04:45 PM switched from vertical to RHI (at 355 degrees azimuth) for about 20 minutes. Gust front with slight head and a few waves advected overhead from the north to the south with opposite flow just above it. Was much less than 500 m deep at the thickest point. Back to vertical for 5 to 10 minutes in air behind gust front and noticed turbulence was severely reduced. Note: we changed to 60 m gates for a while vertical behind the gust front and then went to RHIs and PPIs again. 22:45 Z back to vertical stare 08-08-96, Thursday: SCANNING DAY: 50.8 PPIs. Airmass change began today (lower SNR). Chris and Shane arrived at about 7:30 AM CDT (12:30 Z) Scattered clouds at arrival - expecting clearing today. 14:20 Z starting 50.8 PPIs at 3 degrees azimuth per second 14:48 Z trying 2 degrees azimuth per second During the day the air became clearer and the SNR dropped. We increased averaging (or dwell) time to compensate for poor SNR and adjusted azimuthal scan rate accordingly. 23:00 Z following profiler to compare: pattern of 258 90, 258 69, 168 69, 348 90, 78 69, 348 69, repeat. Jim and Tammy say that biases in 3 cm DOW data are due to bird migration. About 23:30 Z shutdown 23:50 Z shooting transformer 08-09-96, Friday: VERTICAL, intensive, all day RASS, poor SNR for lidar. Rich Neitzel arrived last night. Working on Polka today. Chris arrived at about 7 AM. Experiencing problems with stopping the profiler sync mode from yesterday. Had to reboot everything except Monsoon to get it to stop. Clear skies, clear air, and cooler temperatures this morning. Northerly flow about 5 knots this morning. Very low SNR, 10-s dwell on 2-micron in AM, 20-s dwells in PM. Started off with shallow RHIs to the south and observed impulses of backscatter advecting away: we think due to dust kicked up off our driveway as people arrive at the site. 185 degrees azimuth. SABL started slightly later than usual today because control tower asked us to delay. Military plane in area. SABL dropping out at 10:03 AM occasionally - dark vertical stripes on display. 16:40 cumulus onset (Shane's notes do not indicate shutdown times) 08-10-96, Saturday: VERTICAL, 5-s dwells on 2-micron, high-mid clouds. Grund arrived at about 7:30 AM, Shane took morning off. Marchbanks and Senff started DIAL by about 9 AM. Herminio in this morning to start SABL. Tammy here to run DOW. Grund says 2-micron and DOW are seeing rolls. Lots of mid and high overcast today. Cumulus clouds appearing at about 11 AM CDT. Ran lidars until about 8:30 PM CDT. NOTE: Good cirrus today. 08-11-96, Sunday: DOWN because of weather. Overcast most of day. Grund ran Doppler lidar anyway and had problems with the signal processor. Weckwerth collected data also. Senff worked on Polka. Avila, Marchbanks, and Mayor took day off. 08-12-96, Monday: VERTICAL, 5-s dwells, deep cumulus convection. Mitch Randall arriving today. Sunrise: 6:02 AM, Sunset: 7:52 PM CDT. Shane arrived at site at about 7:45 AM. Grund arrived earlier. Shallow "fog" or "haze" layer at surface this morning. Skies mostly clear. Light winds out of the NNE at the surface. 14:50 Z - developed trouble with the signal processor? Velocities weakly positive and intensity white. Tape C written on twice. Hard reboot of signal processor at 10:40 AM CDT. 15:40 Z - Back to vertical stare, 3rd file on tape D. about 15:50 Z - just noticed that cumulus are starting to pop up to the NW. Today was a good cumulus convection day. Deep towering Cu but no thunderstorms. Vertical stare all day. Some clustering of Cu convection this afternoon, but clearing starting at about 5 PM CDT. About 22:50 Z - tried to go into profiler sync mode but stayed vertical. Changed dwell time down to 1-s. About 23:00 Z - Started tape E since we did a hard reboot. Hard reboot of signal processor was done with tape E in drive. We are unsure about the effect of leaving tapes in drive during boots. Getting very nice weak vertical motions in 1.6 km deep BL (top defined by backscatter) recording on tape E. Hope we can read it! Running overnight for full diurnal cycle of observations. 08-13-96, Tuesday: VERTICAL, intensive, Chet Gardner visited site. Grund ran 2-micron overnight and left at 7:30 AM CDT. Reported nothing very interesting. Did RHIs and PPI scans all night. Senff ran DIAL until 3 AM. Marchbanks started at 3 AM. Weckwerth ran 3 cm DOW all might and left at 6:30 or 7 AM. Avila ran DOW after Tammy. SABL quit sometime before 4 AM for unknown reason. Computer locked up and Avila restarted it by 7 AM. Shane left site 8/12 at 10 PM and returned at 6:30 AM on 8/13. Very interesting bands in 2 degree elevation PPIs at about 13:30 Z. Started a series of 35.3 and 50.8 PPIs at 2 degrees azimuth per s for about one half hour or so. Excellent waves on SABL. Vertical at 14:23 Z: not interesting Seeing waves on RHI scans to the north. 15:09 Z switched to 60 m gate width. Note: black bars on RTI display at 2.1, 2.5, and 2.9 km. 15:28 Z vertical, 60 m, 1-s, SABL showing excellent breakdown of overlying stable layers as CBL rises. 15:30 Z, 30 m, 1-s, vertical, 2-micron just starting to show updrafts and downdrafts from 300-500 m AGL. 15:40 Z, noticed Cu starting to pop up, took pictures. 16:00 Z, video camera time running about 11 s slower than GPS on Doppler lidar. 16:27 Z, going from 200 pulse to 400 pulse average because air between clouds is very clean. 16:35 Z, descending air still too clean for w measurements (poor SNR). Updrafts have high SNR. Contemplating increasing averaging. 16:41:30 Z, going from 400 pulse to 1000 pulse (5-s) average on 2-micron. Air between updrafts still low SNR with 5-s dwells. 17:15:00 Z, going to 2000 pulse average (10-s) Mostly clear BL at 7 PM CDT. Shutdown at 00:00 Z. Note: Grund changed signal processor back to 30 m and 400 pulse average while I was at lunch. Claimed there was problem with 60 m and could reconstruct 60 m if necessary with covariance data. 08-14-96, Wednesday: SCANNING DAY. Walter Bach visited today. Early morning RHIs done by Grund then Shane interleaved 35.3 and 50.8 PPIs starting at about 14:00 Z. Switched to 50.8 PPIs during PM with no interleaving. SNR dropped during day. Front AC busted. Herminio handling it excellently. 14:30 Z, mid-level cloud advecting in from the NW (9:30 AM CDT). Clear skies overhead - took a few pictures. BL less than 300 m AGL on SABL at 14:30 Z. 15:50 Z, trying 200 shot dwell at 1 degree azimuth per second. 16:02 Z, back to 400 shot dwell at 1 degree azimuth per second. 16:40 Z, Just opened back of SABL flashlamp box and monitored output. Senff noticed drop-outs. Called Craig. Getting Mitch to look into. New connector should arrive tomorrow. 17:27 Z, CHanged to 50.8 elevation angle PPIs at 1 degree az per second. 20:09 Z, DOW starting 50.8 ele PPIs for one hour. Excellent opportunity for comparison between Doppler radar and lidar measurements of TKE and momentum flux. We suspect a cold front passed today: skies cleared, flow veered in PM, SNR dropped significantly, humidity seems lower, clouds before noon may have been associated with frontal passage but no precip observed. 22:09 up to 600 pulse or 3-s average (dwell) on Doppler lidar. (50.8 at 1 degree per s) Doppler having difficult time staying locked. Temperature in trailer rising. DIAL guys knocking off at 23:00 Z. 22:10 Problems with 2-micron laser - lots of drop outs, Chris tweeking laser. Shutdown SABL and 2-micron at 7 PM CDT. 08-15-96, Thursday: early morning tune up of 2-micron lidar by Grund. Then a mid-day vertical stare and mixed scanning with DOW after 1:30 PM. First part of todays 2-micron tape contains "hard-target" data while Grund was tweeking. He used hard-target at 5 km. Set focus to about 5 km. Major improvements in system performance from this mornings tune up. Herminio replaced a logic board in the big UPS this morning. Diode pump module came up twice with no problems this morning. Vertical stare started at about 10 AM CDT. Minimum range increased to about 350-400 m. keith Koenig working on DIAL computer and Mitch Randall working on connection between 2-micron and ISS this morning. SABL started at 16:00 Z. 1:30 PM Tammy ready to do coordinated scans with 2-micron. Good cumulus clouds today with NW flow. Clearing toward late in the day except thunderstorm on SE horizon. Mitch Randall left this afternoon at 3 PM. Shutdown SABL at 8 PM CDT (which is 01:00 Z on 16th). 08-16-96, Friday: Morning volume scans and profiler beam swinging. Afternoon spent staring vertical with profiler. Excellent SNR on 2-micron. Good CBL today with vigorous convection mid-day. Clouds appeared to be capped because there was not much vertical development (notes at 18:27 Z). Grund arrived early this morning and found cooler on diode pump module had froze. Interlock to pump module worked. Took 1 hour to thaw. Shane started SABL at 8 AM CDT. Skies were clear this morning with some dark, thin, very low level bands of fog or pollution about 100 m up (visual estimate). Very light winds. 4 degree PPI indicates directional shear near surface. 14:43:50 Z GPS time, video is running about 16 s slower than GPS time. We are doing volume scans this morning with 100 pulse averages (half second). Begin az: 180, begin ele: 0.0 End az: 240, end ele: 15.0, Az step: 3.0 degree/s, Ele step: 3.0 degrees/s. (5 levels each 3 degres apart. Not seeing much farther than 1 km range.) Cumulus clouds appearing to the north at 15:10 Z. SABL indicates ML LE 500 m ASL (LE 300 m AGL). Some thin cirrus clouds overhead. Took pictures. Herminio left for Oklahoma this morning with DOW. 15:38 Z follow the profiler mode, 200-shot, 1-s averages, Very good SNR today. 17:30 Z went to vertical with profiler. Profiler at 30-s dwell, vertical beam only, 400 ns pulse. Note: no SABL "dropouts" today, wire open in the back of flashlamp. 18:27 Z: vigorous convection mid-day. Clouds appeared to be capped because there was not much vertical development. 20:00 Z: set profiler sync mode to short(0) and maintained vertical stare. Shane getting lesson from Steve on how to run profiler. 20:04:44 Z: paused 915-MHz profiler on ISS at LIFT site. 23:00 Z: Very nice cirrus. Cumulus clouds gone. ML turbulence weakening. Took photos. 23:42 Z: contrails and cirrus above, took more photos, increased SABLs max range from 1500 to 2000 gates. I think cirrus is still above SABLs max range now. 23:50 Z: decreased sampling to 3000 KHz on SABL - can now see cirrus. 00:02 Z: moving background down to 170 gates on Doppler lidar. Video time about 14 s slower than GPS. Cirrus on 2-micron extremely weak. 00:47:47 shutdown, "A tape" ran all day. Did a cleanup before ejecting tape. Is this Ok??? 8:07 PM. Set 915-MHz profiler back to fl96.par. Seeing beamcom error message. 08-17-96, Saturday: DOWN day due to rain. 08-18-96, Sunday: DOWN day due to rain. 08-19-96, Monday: RHIs and PPIs until 15:30 Z then vertical for remainder of day. Rain during past two days has left ground very wet. Air is humid and there is some fog or haze to reduce visibility. Vertical data this morning is mostly all upward motion up to about 1 km AGL which is suspicious (about 0.5 m/s). 13:15 Z shot transformer 13:30 Z started vertical stare without adjusting the lock loop software parameters. QSBUT is running high and it easily drops out of lock to search. QSBUT = 5-5.5x10^-6. This mornings settings are e) c) 4.0e-6 and e) d) 5.19e-6. 13:45 Z using 6.0e-6 for d) c) Ramp PZT is QSBUT greater than 4.3e-6 d) Use beat note for loop feedback when QSBUT less than 6.0e-6. 14:00 Z 2 degree elevation PPIs (2 of them at 1 degree azimuth per second) flow from the SSE. 14:12 Z RHI at 200 degrees indicates a "jet" (?) (running 0-40 degrees elevation). Peak wind about 12 m/s at 250 m AGL. Did many of these RHIs. An excellent series to look at in post-analysis. 14:57 Z: started 35.3 PPIs at 2 degrees / s azimuth. 15:15 Z: noticed some altocu but no surface driven cumulus yet. 15:33:45 Z: went to vertical. Cumulus developed within 1/2 hour after we went into vertical. Today is hot with a good south wind. Very hazy and humid. 1-s data looking pretty good. Scattered cumulus throughout day. 23:14 Just took some pictures. Sky very hazy. No cumulus clouds - but there are some altostratus or cirrus much higher up - which doesn't show up on 2-micron A-scope. vertical velocities getting very weak with positive bias. 23:20 Adjusted the e) c) up to 4.7e-6 and e) d) down to 5.5e-6. Am noticing that turbulent intensity is starting to increase again although BL height dropping. Note: VHS clock running 16-s slower than GPS time. 00:30 Stopped vertical. Doing a 2 degree PPI to close out the day. NOTE: Accidentally operated all day with the damn spotting scope in place! 08-20-96, Tuesday: VERTICAL (intensive with continuous RASS and vertical only on the 915.) Clear skies, hazy, warm and humid this morning. A mostly clear, sunny, hot, & humid day. Some cumulus and towering cumulus during the afternoon - but not many. 13:15 Z: shooting transformer 13:52 Z: starting with a 2 degree PPI, note LO setting was not optimal at first. Very slight adjustment helped tremendously! Excellent SNR this morning. 14:10 Z: trying some RHIs at 200 degrees azimuth. 14:22 Z: doing 35.3 PPIs at 2 degrees azimuth per second. 14:44 Z: vertical with 200-pulse averages (1-s dwells) 17:57 Z: clear skies thus far today. There was just a hint of altocu to the NW earlier this morning and the hazyness and radar summary made me suspicious of thunderstorms, but a trip to the university synoptic lab makes me think we'll miss the deep convection. Skies mostly clear - just a few, very few, shreads of cumulus occasionally. Note: azimuth on 2-micron scanner is slowly increasing today despite we are staring vertical. Why is it walking while we are pointing? 0.44 degrees/hour. 21:00 Z substantial deepening of mixed layer on the 2-micron with cumulus overhead. 21:05 Z just took some pictures. Towering cumulus. Still most of the sky is clear just scattered cumulus and a few towering cumulus off in the distance. Note: I think today is the best SNR I've seen for the 2-micron system. NCP values near 150/255 (0.58) 00:47:37 Z Stop/scan file, cleanup, eject tape 08-21-96, Wednesday: VERTICAL, continuous vertical on 915 without RASS, 2 sondes) 13:19 Z shooting transformer 13:40 Z starting with 2 degree elevation PPI at 1 degree per second azimuth. Clear skies, warm, hazy, and humid. SW flow near surface. 13:57 Z doing RHIs at 225 azimuth. full over the top RHIs. Note: on RHIs zero radial velocity line occurs at about 80 degree elevation. 14:25:39 Z Stopped RHIs to do solar cal. Looks fine. 14:41 Z Herminio checking levelness of scanner on roof. Looks good. 14:42 Z start vertical - still a weak positive bias, very good SNR. 17:00 Z skies still clear, no cumulus yet. 17:47 Christoph just noticed towering Cu to the NE and a few spotty Cu elsewhere. Shane went on a small airplane ride today to take photos of the LIFT site. Deep cumulus this afternoon and very hazy. Clouds not clustering. skies returning to clear except for a few towering cu in the evening. 22:32 started profiler sync mode during RASS (5:30 PM) 22:34:00 Z first off zenith beam: (78 69), (348 69), (258 90), (258 69), (168 69), (348 90), repeat. Seeing max radial velocities at + and - 3 m/s. Launched a balloon at noon and 2 PM CDT. 23:00 Z Backyard fire to the south of the LIFT site. Black plume blowing to the NNW. 00:30 Z Stopped profiler sync mode (7:30 PM CDT, almost sunset) Ejected tape before software clean up. Towering Cumulus toward the SE - bright pink. Some cumulus also to the west. 08-22-96, Thursday: 2-hours of profiler sync mode this morning, then 35.3 PPIs rest of day except for a two hour period from about 16:45 to 18:45 when the scanner azimuth drive was slipping. During this period we collected a little bit of vertical data while I cleaned the scanner azimuth drive disks. Morning conditions: clear skies, sunny, warm and hazy... 13:01 Z shooting transformer 13:15 Z started profile sync mode 13:22 Z data looked bad until now due to spotting scope and LO setting. 13:35 Z looks like low level jet near 6 m/s at min range. 15:42 Z stopped profile sync mode and started 35.3 PPIs Clock on video is running 17 s slow. 17:00 Z (approximately) scanner stuck at about 0 degrees azimuth for about 10 minutes! 17:15 Z Scanner hanging at 352.4 degrees azimuth. Called Ron Richter and DFM. Tightened arm as much as possible. No help. Then spent about 1/2 hour wiping discs with rags and degreaser/cleaner to remove anything that may be lowering the friction. Put elevation at 90 degrees while doing this because vertical data is useful regardless of azimuth. This could be an interesting test during stable conditions to check beam pointing. (If elevation is 90, w should be zero regardless of azimuth.) 18:47 Z Back to 35.3 degree PPIs. Suppose I wiped enough grease to give it enough friction to continue. Weather conditions are: hazy, hot and humid with cumulus clouds. I did shoot the transformer after working on the scanner. About 7 PM CDT - had to adjust the LO. Interrupted time series. ABout 7:45 PM CDT Shutdown. Did a software cleanup before ejecting tape.