Monday, Nov. 20, 2006

R/V MIRAI

"makes the last spurt"

Rain, later cloudy.
Westerly wind (5 m/s) was dominant and wave height was 1.8m.

Observations:

Radiosonde observation, CTD casting, and other routine observations have been carried out.
Two videosondes was launched at 03:02 and 05:15 LST, while one (last) snow-white sonde was launched at 17:01 LST.
From last night to the early morning, westward propagating cloud systems passed over the MIRAI. In the afternoon, on the other hand, precipitation systems passed away and it was overcasted with some altocumulus (photo-1).
Satellite data still shows that it is convectively active phase over the tropical Indian Ocean. In addition, another westward propagating precipitation systems can be observed 200 km west of the MIRAI as of 20:00 LST by the Doppler radar. Furthermore, easterly wind near the tropopause became strong.

Remarks:

We have only one week for the leg-1 of the MISMO cruise. Since we have to recover the m-TRITON buoys and sub-surface ADCP moorings, we will finish the stationary observation at (0, 80.5E) by tomorrow night, then we will go to (0, 82E).
Photos 2-3 were taken when the baloon for videosonde was prepared in the early morning.