These water-needy locales all share certain physical requirements for converting fog to usable water for their populations: prevailing winds from a cool, offshore marine environment; elevated landforms at least thirteen hundred feet above sea level for maximum fog-water collection and within three to six miles of the coast, where fog-collecting arrays can be sited perpendicular to the onshore wind; recurring marine
stratocumulus clouds that intercept these land-forms and become fog; and the technical facilities and know-how to convert these life-giving fogs into potable water.
Stratocumulus and cirrus clouds do not spawn thunderstorms, tornadoes or other severe weather, so they haven't attracted as much attention from researchers as more menacing cloud forms.
Mitchell, 1994: Absorption feedback in
stratocumulus clouds: Influence on cloud top albedo.
At 2100 UTC, the convective system was broken over the entire area and
stratocumulus precipitation prevailed.
And stratus,
stratocumulus, cumulus and cumulonimbus are found below 2,500 metres.
The research team flew through
stratocumulus clouds at a constant altitude in aircraft equipped with the holographic detector for clouds, or HOLODEC-- a clawlike instrument fixed under the wing of the plane that takes 3D images depicting the shape, size, and spatial position of everything it encounters.
On the other hand,
stratocumulus and fair weather cumulus clouds, which are all cumuliform, are not likely to produce much more than light icing because of the weak updraft strengths.
Here, CloudSat-defined cloud categories: cirrus, altostratus, stratus,
stratocumulus, cumulus, nimbostratus, and deep convection.
Burnet, 2005: Evaluation of the aerosol indirect effect in marine
stratocumulus clouds: Droplet number, size, liquid water path, and radiative impact.
This stratus and
stratocumulus can reach as far west as Lubbock and Amarillo, and as far north as southern Nebraska.
Hu, "The study on the winter
stratocumulus cloud over Urumuqi, Xinjiang, China--structure and evolution," Acta Meteorologica Sinica, vol.