Analysis of the 20 May 2011 MCS Observed in MC3E

The Mid-Latitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E) was a joint DOE ARM, NASA GPM field campaign during April - June 2011 centered at the ARM Southern Great Plains site. The overarching scientific goals of this campaign were to advance the understanding of the different components of convective parameterization and to improve the fidelity of satellite estimates of precipitation over land. One of the unique aspects of MC3E was the ground based radar network, where research radars at S, C, X, Ku, Ka, and W band were deployed. This study concerns the large Mesoscale Convective System that passed through the MC3E domain on 20 May 2011. The DOE X-band radar network is used to document the kinematic structure of this large MCS. Hydrometeor identification is also done using the X-band data, and compared the nearby Vance S-band NEXRAD 88-D radar, since attenuation is much less at S-band compared to X-band. The DOE X-band radars were also used to collect vertically-pointing data in the stratiform region and thus reveal the fine scale structure of the radar bight band.