The tilt of the leading edge of mesoscale tropical convective lines

The tilt with height of the leading edge of seven mesoscale convective lines in GATE is determined by two independent methods. When averaged over time and along the line axis, the tilt is found to be surprisingly shallow, between 20 and 35 deg from the horizontal. This is distinct from the slopes of the individual towers, which can be much steeper. The line leading-edge slope corresponds to the ratio of the vertical to horizontal velocity, relative to the line motion, of representative embedded convective cores.