Observing the diurnal cycle of coastal rainfall over Western Puerto Rico in collaboration with University of Puerto Rico students

Thirty radiosondes were launched during a 3-week period as part of NASA's Convective Processes Experiment-Aerosols and Winds (CPEX-AW) field project. The objective of the radiosonde launches over Puerto Rico was to understand the evolution of coastal convective systems that are often challenging to predict.

Four different events were sampled: 1) a short-lived rainfall event during a Saharan air dust outbreak, 2) a 2-day period of limited rainfall activity under northeasterly wind conditions, 3) a 2-day period of heavy rainfall over land, and 4) a 2-day period of long-lived rainfall events that initiated over land and propagated offshore during the evening hours. The radiosondes captured the sea-breeze onset during the midmorning hours, an erosion of lower-tropospheric inversions, and substantial differences in column humidity between the four events.