Identify cloud types and their characteristics

Aviation meteorology is a wide field in terms of forecasting and forecasting product. Not only is there a big difference between the civil aviation part and General Aviation (GA), but also in GA there are a lot of specific customers who needs specific forecasts; VFR forecasts for small planes, gliding, paragliding, ultra-lights, ballooning etc.

Ballooning forecasts can also differ, e.g. the commercial balloonists need other forecasts than balloonists in competitions and championships and gas balloons can fly in weather circumstances where it is impossible for hot air balloons.

In the presentation it will be shown which items are of main importance for balloon forecast e.g. accurate wind forecasts, starting and dying out of thermals and convection. And also how surface observations, radio soundings, satellite and radar can be of help.

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Polar Lows can be seen as small Arctic hurricanes, and they have a severe impact on shipping and coastal communities in Scandinavia. They are most common in the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea, but are also known to occur in the central North Sea and surrounding coastal areas. Polar lows are the most intense type of wintery convection weather phenomenon in this area. Thus, a familiarity with Polar Lows will also increase our ability to forecast the more common snow shower events in the winter season. This talk will present some facts on Polar Lows, how they are forecasted, and give examples of interpretation of satellite imagery.

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The Mediterranean tropical-like cyclones are intense sub-synoptic maritime lows with strong winds, axisymmetric warm-core structure and tropical cyclone features, such as a cloud-free eye and spiral deep convection. They are frequently referred to as medicanes (MEDIterranean hurriCANES) due to their resemblance to tropical cyclones. Despite their low frequency (of about 1.1-1.6 systems per year), medicanes constitute a serious natural hazard to life, property and the environment of the coastal regions of the Mediterranean basin and the Black Sea. Their accurate prediction is a challenge for the numerical weather prediction models. This presentation includes some past cases of medicanes, the description of their structure and characteristics, criteria that are used to define them, the development mechanisms, climatology, consequences and finally a detailed case study of medicane Qendresa (November 2014).

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The EUMETSAT-operated Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite has been providing near-real time data to the marine community since mid-2016, and will be soon be joined in operations by its sister, Sentinel-3B. This presentation will give an overview of the available Sentinel-3 marine products, with a primary focus on data streams associated by the altimeter (SRAL) and sea surface temperature radiometer (SLSTR). Examples of the relevant applications will be presented, along with a discussion of how users can best access data and monitor its quality.

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Sea and coastal areas have radiative characteristics that enhance the identification of non-meteorological features like smoke, ash or dust. Maritime inversions and atmospheric interchanges along coastal areas engender particular cloud patterns like Bénard cells, Kármán vortex streets, undular bores, ship trails, (extra) tropical cyclones or sea breeze fronts. Examples of such features will be shown and discussed, using imagery from geostationary and polar weather satellites.

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Satellite image interpretation of shallow clouds and related weather phenomena is a very important task for nowcasting because NWP-models and statistical methods exhibit still deficiencies in simulating these phenomena in a proper way. Especially over oceans but also over land observation networks are often too coarse meshed for nowcasting.
The theory and the most suitable satellite products will be explained first. In combination with other data (e.g., observations, radio soundings, radar products) examples will be discussed for the following application areas:

1. Diagnosing shallow clouds in respect to water content and related weather, e.g., drizzle of different intensities;
2. Identifying fog and low stratus and how to estimate the fog/stratus layer’s thickness. The likelihood of dissolving and connected weather phenomena (e.g., freezing drizzle) will be covered, too.

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Convection can be found everywhere on the planet. However in meteorological way of thinking in mid-latitudes there is convection in different airmasses and also at the boundary of these airmasses. Convection at the boundaries belongs to the sub-features of frontal systems and we won’t deal with convection in the frontal systems.
In this lecture a few examples of unstable air Conceptual models will be shown, for instance: Cumulonimbi, Enhancement of convection by PV, Spanish Plume, etc. The typical environment is one part and the organization modes is the second part of the lecture.

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Gravity waves are omnipresent in the atmosphere. In this presentation you will hear more about the different wave types, their appearance in satellite imagery and about their physical background.
Most gravity waves are generated by orographic elevations and in this case we call them lee waves. They can present a serious threat to aircrafts when the air flow changes from laminar to turbulent or when rotor clouds are generated. When this happens without accompanying condensation processes, the phenomenon is called "Clear Air Turbulence" (CAT). In many cases, waves in the atmosphere are accompanied by a characteristic cloud pattern visible in the IR and VIS imagery that helps in identifying regions potentially hazardous for aircrafts.
Gravity waves can however also result from internal friction/shear processes when two layers of air with different physical properties (e.g. temperature, density, wind speed ...) are acting one on the other. This wave type is called Kelvin-Helmholtz wave. Turbulence caused by velocity and directional shear are relatively common in the upper Troposphere in the regions of jet streaks.

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There are a number of structures and processes happening after a cold front has passed an area, e.g. enhanced cumuli, commas, instant occlusions, etc. Commas, for example are meso-scale structures developing within cold air, often behind frontal cloud bands. They occur mainly during the cold season and are a common feature for Northern and Western Europe - nevertheless commas can also be found in the south. As commas can cause severe weather this conceptual model is of high interest for forecasters. In this lecture life cycles of commas will be shown, what do commas form from, what can they form into, how they are connected to other mentioned phenomena and how they appear in satellite imagery - seen by MSG and polar orbiting satellites.

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Precipitation within extratropical cyclones often organizes into mesoscale substructures known as precipitation bands. The purpose of this presentation is to better understand how precipitation organizes into bands. We will discuss about Shapiro-Keyser and the Norweigan models of cyclones, why do they form, the differences between them, also where in cyclones precipitation bands form, their structures and evolutions, what controls their locations and intensities, and techniques to diagnose precipitation bands. In the end we will discuss about occlusion bands and how do they actually form considering latest researches.

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In this second part of the Cyclogenesis and Occlusion Cloud Bands lecture, a special form of cyclogenesis is treated in detail: the “rapid cyclogenesis” which is connected with very severe and often catastrophic weather events.
All processes and weather systems are presented from the aspect of “Conceptual Model thinking”; that means the typical appearance in satellite images is connected to the physical background which is responsible for the cloud configurations; then these results are connected to relevant numerical parameters in horizontal and vertical presentation. And all of the presented CMs are connected to the typical connected weather events. This combination of different meteorological material is especially important in forecasting and nowcasting.

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Cyclogenesis and occlusion cloud bands are common meteorological phenomena which are tightly connected. While “cyclogenesis” is a process, describing the development of a low centre, which can last from few hours to several days, the occlusion cloud bands are the result of this cyclogenesis process. Occlusion cloud bands differ from cold and warm front bands because of their history as well as their physical status.
The two lectures start from the classical cyclogenesis (occlusion) processes which are related to the classical polar front theory and introduce then the conveyor belt view of these processes culminating in the warm and cold conveyor belt occlusion types.
The occlusion cloud band types are described and compared to cold and warm front types in their horizontal as well as vertical depiction.
Also special subtypes of occlusion processes like “instant occlusion” and "cold air development" are mentioned.

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