Fig. 1: Diurnal ABL evolution over wet and dry soils, respectively.

Potential temperature θ (a; in K) and specific humidity q (b; in kg water per kg air) versus height on characteristic dry (07-07-2012) and wet days (25-06-2014; 89.33 W, 40.15 N). The solid lines depict the idealized afternoon profile to which the ABL model validated, inferred from balloon soundings in the data-screening steps (see “Screening of weather balloon sounding measurements” and “Data” in Methods) from afternoon observations (points) while crosses denote the morning ABL that the model is initialized with. Colored boxes and corresponding arrows indicate the growth of the ABL and warming/drying during the day.