Comments on “Unusually Long Duration, Multiple-Doppler Radar Observations of a Front in a Convective Boundary Layer”

Stonitsch and Markowski perform multiple-Doppler radar analyses of a cold front over Oklahoma and Kansas. Despite their interesting results, their explanations include a number of misconceptions about cold fronts. These misconceptions include the proper interpretation of the frontogenesis function, the role of entrainment versus differential surface sensible heat flux toward weakening the virtual potential temperature gradient across a cold front, a separation of the wind shift from the virtual potential temperature gradient, and the factors that affect the motion of the cold front.