NOAA P-3 Mission Summary Report (EPIC)

ITCZ mission, 8.2 hrs duration. We flew the same  
lawn-mower pattern as in previous missions in the  
box 8-12N 93-97W. 

One of the objectives was to direct the C-130 to convective regions.
The C-130 was ahead of us upon take off and find their first
target without help. We assist in selecting their second
target, which from the radar seems to be the eastern part of an
E-W band (11.3N,95.6W). 

We also dropped 28 AXCP with 5 failures, 
20 AXCTD with 8 failures, and
29 GPS dropsondes, we did not 
recover winds from 7 of the GPS.


All instruments seem to work. 

The radar was operated as before in dual frequency mode,
however, after the last point in the pattern the radar was 
switched to single frequency.


From the scientific point of view,
We observed wide spread convection, but not very intense.
The taller clouds we saw were about 12km hight
the northern part of the pattern seemed to have more
convective activity than the southern part. 
At flight level, we observe generally north westerlies
and at the surface south easterlies. However, we observe lines
of convection oriented E-W, N-S, NE-SW, NW-SE.