Studies of Dynamics and Electrification of Deep Convection and Mesoscale Cloud Clusters Near Darwin, Australia

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Professor Williams, collaborating with Professor Rutledge of the Colorado State University, will participate in a thunderstorm experiment near Darwin, Australia between November 1988 and February 1989. This award will allow the two principal investigators to operate the MIT 5 cm radar and a network of 10 coronal point stations in the field. The joint operation of the MIT radar and the NOAA TOGA (Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere) 5 cm radar will provide, for the first time, dual-Doppler observations in the tropics. The primary objective of Professors Williams and Rutledge's research is to better understand the dynamics and electrification of deep tropical convection and mesoscale weather systems and compare it with what we know of in the middle latitudes. Since the field phase corresponds to the winter monsoon period in northern Australia, this work will also allow a comparison of the behavior of lightning between oceanic storms, prominent during monsoon onset, and continental storms, prominent during monsoon breaks.