• Atmosphere
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.311-324
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• 2019

We employed a Multi-Angle Snowflake Camera (MASC) to quantitatively analyze snow particles at the ground level in the Yeongdong region of Korea. The MASC captures high-resolution photographs of hydrometeors from three angles and simultaneously measures fallspeed. Based on snowflake images of the several episodes in 2017 and 2018, we derived statistics of size, aspect ratio, orientation, complexity, and fallspeed of snow crystals, which generally showed similar characteristics to the previous studies in other regions of the world. Dominant snow crystal habits of January 22, 2018 generated by northerly were melted aggregates when 850 hPa temperature was about $-6{\sim}-8^{\circ}C$. Average fallspeed of snow crystals was $1.0m\;s^{-1}$ though its size gradually increased as temperature decreased. Another snowfall event (March 8, 2018) was driven by the baroclinic instability as accompanied with a deep trough. Snow crystal habits were largely rimed aggregates (complexity ~1.8) and melting particles of dark images. Meanwhile, in the extreme snowfall event whose snow rate was greater than $10cm\;hr^{-1}$ on January 20, 2017, main snow crystals appeared to be heavily rimed particles with relatively smaller size when convective clouds developed vertically up to 9 km in association with tropopause folding. MASC also could successfully measure a decrease in snow crystal size and an increase in riming degree after AgI seeding at Daegwallyeong on March 14, 2017.

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