DIAGNOSIS OF AN AMPLIFYING AND DECAYING BAROCLINIC WAVE USING WIND PROFILER DATA

Kinematic and thermodynamic quantities derived from wind profiler tria ngles are used to help describe the structure of both an amplifying an d decaying baroclinic wave as they traversed portions of the wind prof iler demonstration network. The data provide excellent diagnoses of th e cyclogenetic processes associated with the amplifying system and the cyclolytic processes associated with the decaying system. The importa nce of a baroclinic wave's vertical tilt and the associated profiler-d erived advective patterns of the systems as they relate to surface evo lution are shown to be consistent with conceptual models of baroclinic waves. These structural aspects of the observed baroclinic waves are also shown to vary substantially on short timescales. In addition, a s ubsynoptic-scale feature associated with a severe convective event tha t developed ahead of the decaying wave trough axis was observed quite well by the profiler network. This feature's detection was dependent o n the high temporal resolution of the profiler data and was not detect able with data provided by the rawinsonde network.