CLOUD-WATER CONTENT IN CONTINENTAL CLOUDS OF MIDDLE LATITUDES

A large data set of the total (liquid and ice) cloud water content in continental stratiform clouds of middle latitudes was collected in the Cloud Physics Laboratory (CPL) of the Central Aerological Observatory (CAO). The total flight length in clouds was over 100,000 km. On the basis of these data, the cumulative frequencies of TCWC occurrences F(w) were found and parameterized by log-normal distributions which parameters depend on temperature. In the temperature interval from 0 degrees C to -40 degrees C the empirical values of F(w) deviate of no more than 5% from the parameterized ones. The new data, with a better probe detecting threshold, lead to a noticeable increase of the cases with small values of cloud water content and correspondingly, decrease of cloud water content characteristic values comparing with the values previously obtained by many authors. The difference increased with decreasing temperature.