Discussions from the 24 May 2008 Archived Case

As I mentioned in the previous pseudo-GLM post, there were several good lines of discussion during and after the event was run.

I had asked what the forecasters felt about the pseudo-GLM as a whole and how the WFOs use lightning now. One common response was that lightning is a "good to know" product, particularly for situational awareness. Lightning is good for outdoor events and monitoring lightning initiation. The pseudo-GLM improves the lead time on the first cloud-to-ground strike as most storms begin with intra-cloud lightning before the first cloud-to-ground strike. The pseudo-GLM also can assist in radar poor regions as well as gauge the intensity of the lightning activity.

Additionally, I was a little too concerned with influencing the forecasters' thought process during the event. As a result the lightning jump described in the previous post was not readily seen. During the post analysis, the discussion focused on the lightning jump and how it did help flag the southern cell a few minutes earlier than radar alone. The post-event analysis helped solidify the connection between the lightning jump and what was observed on radar.

I also asked about how the 8 km resolution worked for the forecasters. The main response is that everyone always prefers higher resolution. With that said, this resolution should be good enough to distinguish between the updraft and forward flank downdraft region of storms. It also can show the cores of individual storms.

Another comment by the forecasters was the interest in seeing total lightning during winter storms. They wish to determine if there is convective snow and they have found that the National Lightning Detection Network (that detects cloud-to-ground strikes) rarely indicates lightning. Knowing that a snow event is convective could lead to a doubling of the estimated snowfall amount.

One of the final topics I asked about was how to better include lightning data in public products. Currently, the WFOs do not issue "lightning warnings" like the 45th Weather Squadron does for Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Also, the typical warning for severe thunderstorms or tornadoes starts with, "Doppler radar has indicated ..." We discussed how lightning wording could be added and I included some of my conversations with the Huntsville, AL and Melbourne, FL WFOs. There is the potential to state that, "A GLM lightning jump was detected ..." but this incurs problems with interpretation by the public. An excellent suggestion by the forecaster participants was to include the phrase, "... GLM lightning trends indicate a higher confidence that this storm is becoming severe or producing a tornado." This helps convey confidence in the forecast as well as adding additional lightning awareness.

Tomorrow I will update the blog with the discussions and comments from the real-time operations we performed over the Huntsville, Alabama domain today.