We include several plots showing the observations reported by the millimeter cloud radar. These plots are taken from files generated by ARM and available from the ARM archive. The files have the naming convention sgparscloudsC1.c1.yymmdd.hhmmss.cdf. The first three characters in the name represent the location of the instrument (southern great plains in this case) and yymmdd.hhmmss is the year, month, day and hour, minute and second, respectively. These files include the cloud-masked radar Doppler moments, laser cloud base values and data flags and quality control indicators. The processing scheme used to generate these files was developed and implemented by Eugene Clothiaux at Penn State.

We show daily plots of the reflectivity and best estimate cloud laser cloud base in a plot as shown in the figure below. Height is in kilometers above ground and time is in UTC hours. The color scale for the equivalent reflectivity factor is shown to the right of the plot. Laser cloud base is shown by the dots. These are usually shown in orange or black. Note that we make no attempt in these plots to use the data quality flags in the files to discriminate between insect return and clouds. In the plot shown here, the radar echoes below 2 km are all due to insects. Also note the cirrus observed by the micropulse lidar between 6 and 7 UTC. The MMCR, while quite sensitive, does not observe all clouds.

We also show plots of the Doppler moments recorded in "arsclouds" files. See the figure below. In order to show more detail, the day is divided in half and each graphic image shows the equivalent radar reflectivity factor, the Doppler velocity and Doppler spectral width. As before, heights are in kilometers above ground and time is shown in UTC hours. The color code to the right of each plot can be used to assign numbers to the data. Our intention is show the radar properties of clouds. Therefore, we set the data range of the color scheme to values that are typical of clouds. In many cases where precipitation is occurring, the color scale "wraps". In these instances (and they are obvious), the image does not accurately depict the data in the files. Also as before, we make no attempt to use the data quality flags in the files to discriminate between bugs and cloud return.

Other images of the MMCR data can be found at,

• The Penn State Atmospheric Radiation Center
• The ARM MMCR quicklook page
• The NOAA Environmental Technology Laboratory