Precipitation and kinematic structure of an oceanic mesoscale convective system. Part I: convective line structure

The in situ data confirm that warm, moist air feeds the convective line from the east side, but they show a larger fraction of air coming into the convection from the boundary layer than do the Doppler data. They confirm that the line is not an effective barrier to the flow: some air from the east of the line, including boundary-layer air, passes through the line without joining the updrafts. Again, some weak convective-scale downdrafts are evident, but a gust front was not detected. However, at low levels, a pool of cool air lies 10-20 km to the west of the line, outside the dual-Doppler domain. This cool air apparently originated to the north (beneath an extensive stratiform area, but preexisting baroclinicity associated with a front may have also contributed to the cool air) and advected southward. -from Authors