Investigations of the Mesoscale and Microscale Structure of Midwest Winter Cyclonic Storms

由于有可能破坏人类和经济活动，冬季气旋的降水特征具有很大的实用和科学意义。一段时间以来，人们已经知道，来自这些系统的最重降水发生在相对较窄的降水带。在过去的几年里，气旋风暴降水带的组织受到了极大的关注，人们提出了各种物理机制来解释这些降水带的特征。有趣的是,这些关于冬季气旋风暴带性的观测研究大多是在沿海地区进行的，这些地区的气象条件与中部大陆地区截然不同。​主要研究人员建议在伊利诺斯州进行试点观测和数值模拟研究，以开始确定中大陆气旋降水带的特征。这项研究的观测部分将包括加强大气的连续探测和两种先进的气象研究仪器——风廓线仪和多普勒雷达。一个主要的重点是将降水带的组织和结构与更大尺度现象的流场和热力学结构联系起来，如锋面、低层和高层急流、和变形流区。

Due to the potential for disruption of human and economic activities, the precipitation characteristics of winter-time cyclones are of great practical as well as scientific interest. It has been know for some time that the heaviest precipitation from these systems occurs in relatively narrow precipitation bands. Over the past several years, the organization of precipitation bands in cyclonic storms has received a great deal of attention with a variety of physical mechanisms being proposed to explain the characteristics of these bands. Interestingly, most of these observational studies of bandedness in winter cyclonic storms have been conducted in coastal regions which experience quite different meteorological conditions than the mid-continental area. The principal Investigators propose a pilot observational and numerical modelling study in Illinois to begin to define the characteristics of mid-continent cyclonic precipitation bands. The observational component of this research will involve enhanced serial sounding of the atmosphere and two advanced instruments for meteorological research -- wind profiler and Doppler radar. A major focus is to relate the organization and structure of precipitation bands to flow fields and thermodynamic structure of larger scale phenomena such as fronts, lower and upper level jet streams, and zones of deformation flow.