Cloud Type Classification Product Released for CoURAGE and BNF Deployments

Published: 24 March 2026

Time-height displays show reflectivity (top), cloud type (middle), and precipitation (bottom) on April 7, 2025, at the CoURAGE field campaign’s main site in Baltimore, Maryland. The CLDTYPE value-added product generated the displays as part of processing the data for that day. — Time-height displays show reflectivity (top), cloud types (middle), and precipitation (bottom) on April 7, 2025, at the CoURAGE field campaign’s main site in Baltimore, Maryland. The CLDTYPE value-added product generated the displays as part of processing the data for that day.

The Cloud Type Classification value-added product (CLDTYPE VAP) is now available for the 2024–2025 Coast-Urban-Rural Atmospheric Gradient Experiment (CoURAGE) in Baltimore, Maryland. In addition, CLDTYPE is newly available for the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) User Facility’s Bankhead National Forest (BNF) atmospheric observatory in northern Alabama.

CLDTYPE provides an automated cloud type classification based on macrophysical quantities derived from vertically pointing lidar and radar at ARM sites. Up to 10 layers of clouds are classified into seven cloud types based on predetermined and site-specific thresholds of cloud top height, cloud base height, and thickness.

More information about CLDTYPE, including the technical report, can be found on the VAP web page.

CoURAGE data are available from December 1, 2024, through November 30, 2025. BNF data are currently available from November 15, 2024, through December 31, 2025. Additional BNF data will be produced as required input data become available.

Scientists can access the CLDTYPE data in the ARM Data Center. (To download the data, first create an ARM account.)

For questions about the VAP, please contact ARM translator Damao Zhang or developer Krista Gaustad.

To cite the CLDTYPE data, please use doi:10.5439/1349884.

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ARM is a DOE Office of Science user facility operated by nine DOE national laboratories.