NOAA P-3 Mission Summary Report (EPIC)

ITCZ mission(8hr), WP3 flew the same lawn-mower pattern 
in the box 8-12 N 93-97 W. We deployed 27 AXCP (5 fail), 
17 AXCTD (2 fail), and 14 GPS-dropsondes (2 fail).
GPS sondes were dropped only at 12, 10, and 8 North.  
Doppler velocities were uncorrelated in some segments
of the 97W leg between 2044 and 2135 UTC (The velocities 
may be compromised in those segments).  The rest of the 
instruments seemed to work well.

Surface winds were very light, typically between 2 and 4
m/s, they were north-easterlies in most of the pattern
except at 8N where they appear to be south-westerlies.
Flight level winds were primarily easterlies (10 to 15 m/s).
Widespread zones with no convective clouds at all were seen 
to the north-eastern part of the pattern. We encounter most 
of the convection to the south especially to the south-west: 
many kinds of convection from very shallow cumulus 
(less than 1km height) to very deep convection (18 km height) in 
this part of the pattern. Most of the convective cells
were part of E-W aligned lines.