Rationale for Experimental Design

Concentration of observations in the southern Gulf region is based on the

climatology of rainfall, the apparent geographical origin of surge events,

and diurnal tendency in this region for rainfall to propagate westward,

down the SMO slopes, onto the coastal plain and into the GoC itself.

A set of continuous, high resolution and reliable deep tropospheric

precipitation, wind and thermodynamic measurements utilizing radar,

profiler and sounding observations over the southern one half of the SMO

and GoC are critical to the proper initialization and validation of both

regional and cloud resolving numerical models. The co-location of RAOB

and profilers will minimize uncertainties in the significance of data from

each individual observing system and increase the quantitative applications

of both. Observations over the GoC channel, including SST and interfacial

fluxes, are also critically important.