Flight Track:
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Summary:
The Electra just arrived the day before, however, the NCAR pilots were more than willing to fly on short notice. The Electra took off shortly after the P-3 and headed toward Wichita Falls, Texas in anticipation of deep convection. As we neared the target area, we discovered that we could not communicate with the ground armada or the P-3 scientists. GPS also dropped out for most of the flight. Since this was the maiden flight of the Electra, we decided to avoid working on the same storm as the P-3 owing to the lack of radio communication.We decided to fly at low-levels to test the clear-air capability of ELDORA along the dryline. Multiple penetrations of the dryline were collected southwest of Wichita Falls. There was a strong suggestion that Doppler velocity returns as deep as 1.5-2.0 km AGL were being detected. The next target was the cold front located further to the west. Multiple transects of the cold front at different levels were flown. Subsequently, we returned to the dryline at a time when we believe that the cold front and the dryline may have occluded.
Upon hearing on the radio that tornadoes were spotted near Temple by the ground armada, the Electra joined the P-3 around 2330 UTC to collect data along a squall line. All of the crew were very pleased with the mission, considering that this was the first real field test of ELDORA.
Roger Wakimoto