FRONTAL STRUCTURE IN THE INTERIOR OF AN INTENSE MATURE OCEAN CYCLONE

Low-level (300 m) aircraft observations, taken within an intense extra tropical storm during Intensive Observation Period 2 of the Experiment on Rapidly intensifying Cyclones over the Atlantic, are used to docum ent the near-surface frontal structure in the interior of the storm al 1800 UTC 14 December 1988, when the storm was at its maximum depth (9 59 mb). The flight data revealed that a well-defined occluded front sp iraled into the low, making one-and-one-half turns about the center. T he front followed the inner boundary of a spiral cloud and moisture ba nd seen in satellite visible, infrared, and water vapor imagery. The r esults provide support for the idea that sharp occluded, or occluded-l ike, fronts can wrap around the core of deep ocean storms and that sat ellite imagery can be helpful in locating such fronts.