30may        Ankur

30 May was ever clearer than 29 May though it started out iffy with a
narrow band of clouds.  We planned 30 May to be a "super" ABL day.  We
asked the National Weather Service the day before to turn on extra
soundings.  We flew the DC-8 (LASE DIAL) on a moisture map mission which
was quite successful - mixing ratio gradients from 3 g/kg to 12 g/kg in
all directions.  The Falcon was planned to fly, but with HRDL still down,
we gave them a down day to work on the system.  The King Air flew to the
east.  Finally, we got to use the experimental Proteus aircraft for its
first IHOP mission, which is a crazy looking plane (see

http://www.scaled.com/projects/proteus/proteus.htm

for a picture - it is drawing all sorts of attention at the OKC airport, I
don't know how many times I've explained what it's doing out here to
random FAA and airport employees and other people who have access to the
hangar).  A scanning IR inferometer called NAST flies on Proteus.  From
its 55,000 MSL altitude (that's not a typo), NAST "sees" a 30km swath on
the ground.

I got to observe on the DC-8.  The NASA crew is superb.  Cushy leather
seats, ethernet and AC-power hookups, video screens with real-time lidar
data and views from below and front of the plane, and our flight track.
Sodas and food in the back.  Even an in-flight movie (a safety movie).
>From 25,000 feet, you get a really good sense of the large scale features
of the IHOP domain - the green-to-brown vegetation gradient is amazing -
the drought to the west is bad.

Details of all these missions are at:

http://www.joss.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/catalog/ihop/report/index

primarily under the Mission Scientist Summary section (new entires for 27
May, 29 May and 30 May as of the 11 p.m.), and also the summaries for each
airplane.

Tomorrow (31 May) we have another ABL mission with the
King Air on the central track and the Falcon overhead in the afternoon.  
Should be very clear skies again.  By the weekend, people are hoping for a
low-level morning and evening jet (from the south) to set up, as typical
of this kind of weather.  And afterwards, the hope is for some convective
initiation!  Lots of work for everyone - possibly an evening, morning and
afternoon mission all within a 24-hour period this weekend!

Peggy LeMone (NCAR) will be the lead person for ABL planning
(with some support from Tammy Weckworth and Dave Parsons).  It might be a
little hairy though for a while with a lack of representation from our
side at afternoon briefings.  We'll see how it goes.