For the purpose of providing guidance in flight planning, the spectrum of convection present in the COARE domain each hour was partitioned into five classes numbered 0 through 4 according to the areas of contiguous cold cloud-top temperatures < 208 K (Mapes and Houze 1992). Each aircraft mission was assigned a class designation according to the largest contiguous area of cold cloud-top temperatures < 208 K present in the region sampled by the mission. Class 0 missions had no cloud top area < 208 K, while classes 1-4 had progressively larger areas of cold cloud-top. The distribution of classes at each hour during the four month period, 1 November 1992-28 February 1993, is given in a time-size plot for three regions of TOGA COARE operations: the Intensive Flux Area (IFA), the aircraft accessible area, and the entire TOGA COARE large-scale array (LSA).
Each dot represents a cloud cluster defined by a closed contour of 208 K temperature on an hourly satellite infrared image. Cluster radius is the radius of circle having the same area as the observed cloud cluster. Horizontal lines are boundaries of size classes 1 through 4.
A postscript version of these plots is also available.