• Atmosphere
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.139-151
• /
• 2024

The Yeongdong region has suffered from severe snowstorms and the relevant damage such as traffic accidents on slippery roads, and the collapse of greenhouses and temporary buildings. While a lot of research on snowfall has been conducted, the detailed study of snow crystals' phase and habit through intensive observations and the relevant microphysical analysis is still lacking. Therefore, a snowflake camera, PARSIVEL, and intensive radiosonde soundings were utilized to investigate phase and habit changes in solid precipitation. Two remarkable episodes of phase and habit changes were selected such as 19 March 2022 and 15 February 2023. Both events occurred in the synoptic condition of the High in the north and the Low passing by the south, which was accompanied by rapid temperature cooling below 2.5 km. During the events of a short period between 3 to 6 hours, the temperature at 850 hPa decreased by about 4 to 6℃. This cooling led to a change in the main habit of snow particles from riming to aggregate, identified with both MASC and PARSIVEL. Meanwhile, the LDAPS model analyses do not successively represent the rapid cooling and short-term variations of solid precipitation, probably by virtue of overestimating low-level equivalent potential temperature during these periods. The underlying causes of these the low-level temperature variations within 6 hours, still remain unclear. It might be associated with mesoscale orographic phenomenon due to the mountains and East Sea effects, which certainly needs an intensive and comprehensive observation campaign.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
• /
• v.34 no.2_1
• /
• pp.237-248
• /
• 2018

The vertical distribution of hydrometeor before precipitation near the cloud base has been analyzed using a scanning lidar, rawinsonde data, and Cloud-Resolving Storm Simulator (CReSS). This study mostly focuses on 13 Desember 2016 only. The typical synoptic pattern of lake-effect snowstorm induced easterly in the Yeongdong region. Clouds generated due to high temperature difference between 850 hPa and sea surface (SST) penentrated in the Yeongdong region along with northerly and northeasterly, which eventually resulted precipitation. The cloud base height before the precipitation changed from 750 m to 1,280 m, which was in agreement with that from ceilometer at Sokcho. However, ceilometer tended to detect the cloud base 50 m ~ 100 m below strong signal of lidar backscattering coefficient. As a result, the depolarization ratio increased vertically while the backscattering coefficient decreased about 1,010 m~1,200 m above the ground. Lidar signal might be interpreted to be attenuated with the penetration depth of the cloud layer with of nonspherical hydrometeor (snow, ice cloud). An increase in backscattering signal and a decrease in depolarization ratio occured in the layer of 800 to 1,010 m, probably being associated with an increase in non-spherical particles. There seemed to be a shallow liquid layer with a low depolarization ratio (<0.1) in the layer of 850~900 m. As the altitude increases in the 680 m~850 m, the backscattering coefficient and depolarization ratio increase at the same time. In this range of height, the maximum value (0.6) is displayed. Such a result can be inferred that the nonspherical hydrometeor are distributed by a low density. At this time, the depolarization ratio and the backscattering coefficient did not increase under observed melting layer of 680 m. The lidar has a disadvantage that it is difficult for its beam to penetrate deep into clouds due to attenuation problem. However it is promising to distinguish hydrometeor morphology by utilizing the depolarization ratio and the backscattering coefficient, since its vertical high resolution (2.5 m) enable us to analyze detailed cloud microphysics. It would contribute to understanding cloud microphysics of cold clouds and snowfall when remote sensings including lidar, radar, and in-situ measurements could be timely utilized altogether.