The Bow Echo and MCV Experiment (BAMEX): Observations and Opportunities

It represents a combination of two related investigations to study (a) bow echoes, principally those that produce damaging surface winds and last at least 4 h, and (b) larger convective systems that produce long-lived mesoscale convective vortices (MCVs).

The field phase of BAMEX utilized three instrumented research aircraft and an array of mobile ground-based instruments. Two long-range turbo-prop aircraft were equipped with pseudodual-Doppler radar capability, the third aircraft was a jet equipped with dropsondes. The aircraft documented the environmental structure of mesoscale convective systems (MCSs), observed the kinematic and thermodynamic structure of the convective line and stratiform regions (where rear-inflow jets and MCVs reside), and captured the structure of mature MCVs.