These analyses should be perused for continuity of synoptic and large mesoscale features, such as propagating cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies over the southern Gulf of California. Also, perusers should evaluate what upper-air sounding network is needed to specify the details they desire on synoptic-seasonal time scales.
Very few people have ever seen synoptic charts of the NAME domain with data as dense as during the SWAMP and EMVER experiments. Despite the limitations of these analyses they are presented to show the characteristic synoptic variability that might be expected during NAME. The adequacy (or inadequacy) of the sounding network for describing the evolution of the synoptic-scale flow should be considered from these analyses. The main objective in presenting these maps is to suggest the relative contribution of different observations over the NAME domain to the overall analysis.
Some nomenclature peculiar to Gordon’s analyses:
Since pilot balloon data was 3-4 times daily, some off-time observations are written next to the station, but not plotted (to convince the reader of the continuity inherent in the analyses). "N.R" means "no report" — the observation was not made at this time for some reason and "S.R." means "short-run" meaning the pilot balloon was not tracked to this level.
As a general comment, despite the seeming-doubtfulness of many of the small vortices shown in these analyses, the reader is challenged to produce different analyses that show better continuity of the features.
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