Barbados Cloud Observatory

Systems at the site:

• Lidar: running
• Cloudradar: running and scanning
• Ceilometer: running
• Ceilometer KIT: running
• MRR-CIMH: running, no data transfer
• MRR-Deebles: running
• Raingauge: unknown
• Cloudcam: running

Systems at the site:

• Lidar: running
• Cloudradar: running and scanning
• Ceilometer: running
• Ceilometer KIT: running
• MRR-CIMH: running, no data transfer
• MRR-Deebles: running
• Raingauge: unknown
• Cloudcam: running

We need to change the settings for the MRR to close the lidar hatch. At the moment it is definitely to sensible…

… changed the registy that holds the parameters for the rain detection in the following way:

• threshold (factor) signal over noise-level:  2 => 3
• number of spectral lines above threshold:  5 => 8
• number of range gates with rain detected:  3 => 5

let’s check if that makes the rain detection less sensitive. (Lutz)

In the meantime, we had very humble shallow cumuli on the island (Louise).

On Friday and Saturday we experienced lots of rain here on Barbados, with flooded streets and flipped cars. Yesterday afternoon it started around 3 PM and did not stop until late in the evening, very similar to rain in Hamburg, except that temperatures are still comfortable. Winds are strong and the ocean has been pretty rough. Our site got a bit flooded and little pools of water are present everywhere.

On Sunday morning no cloud was visible anywhere near us, except for some high cirrus. When passing the airport, we did not spot ACTOS and the helicopter, so apparently they did fly and sampled some aerosol layers in cloud-free air (http://barbados2010-actos.blogspot.com/2010/11/clouds-on-vacation.html). Small patches of cumulus humilis have started to move into the area a few hours ago – and hopefully the trades are back to usual soon.