It is day 35. One or more two days left to enjoy the sun of a virtual Barbados. Today was a spectacular sounding; I’ve not seen one with such a deep and well form congestus layer. Look at A1. Look at the triple point inversion, and its blue (okay black) nose. For those who don’t understand the nose part you weren’t reading a couple of days ago. Well and so much for the idea that deep layers only form with no wind… but this is a special situation; look at how that intrusion developed (A2, from Terra); it has the real making of a moisture funnel to the mid-latitudes.   

In A3 (also Terra but IR cloud heights overlain) Barbados is on the bottom left of the diagram. Terra, had about a 15Z overpass, i.e., a few hours after the sounding, which I guess was in the middle of that system. The cloud top heights (A3), here colored when they are between 3000 and 4500 m, are consistent with the sounding.

So this is a very different beast, not a day when you really want/need to be flying to try and assess cloud amount as it seems dominated by a storm that seems destined to bring 1m of snow to me in the French Alps in a weeks time. Even so, today is really one of those days when you wish the site was up.  

Friedhelm is headed to Barbados on the weekend, so hopefully we get data again soon.