Time for some analysis

After two very intense months of the field campaign in the Rockies, it was finally time to cool down and go back to Montreal to start working on all the data collected. As my PhD project is about the mesoscale modelling of precipitation across the continental divide, the first step for me was to spot and analyze the main events that would be interesting for me to study. I selected 4 of them. The goal now is to make the synoptic analysis of these events, and characterize their common and uncommon patterns to see what conclusions we can take of the orographic processes that took place during this whole campaign. To that extent, I have been collecting synoptic maps, radar and satellite images, soundings, and trying to link all this information by going deeper and deeper in the atmosphere until finally studying the surface conditions measured by our weather stations in Fortress and Nipika, such as the temperature, the relative humidity, the accumulated precipitation and the wind speed.

On the pictures below, the low pressure system located in the area on June 21st brought the last and most intense storm for both Fortress and Nipika, with respectively 56 and 19 mm of rain collected. However it is interesting to see how drier and warmer the weather was at Storm Lodge in the very same time, even if located just in the middle of both stations !It is a curious experience, working on the data we have been collecting all together for so long, as it reminds me of such great and intense moments we had while doing it. As an example, the picture below shows all the happiness (probably mixed with exhaustion) we felt once this last and biggest storm was declared over, and we knew at that point that the field campaign was a total success. That kind of moments brings a whole new dimension to our scientific work.

​-Cécile Carton