EWP real-time IOP CI feedback

Today's IOP focused over the DCLMA domain to get some real-time PGLM experience. The forecasters broke up into two groups and localized over the Sterling, VA and State College, PA WFOs. The Sterling WFO group have been issuing severe thunderstorm warnings based on PGLM and MRMS products over the past couple hours. I was sitting with the State College WFO group as they were focusing on the UWCI products, watching for convective initiation over their area. One of the forecasters had multiple GOES-R Proving Ground products (UWCI, cloud-top cooling, overshooting top, and thermal couplet) into a 4-panel display and mentioned to me that this display strategy would be extremely useful as a situational awareness tool for monitoring satellite convective information.



GOES-13 IR imagery for 1832 (top left), 1845 (top right), 1902 (bottom left) and 1915 UTC (bottom right) on 16 June 2010. Area of interest noted by green circle.
We noticed an area of obvious convective development that was not detected by the UWCI product on the WV/VA border at 1915 UTC and the forecaster asked me to explain why no CI nowcast was made. Looking at the IR, you could see significant cooling occurring from 1832 and 1915 UTC (see above), but still no signals were seen. Jordan Gerth and I looked at the cloud typing output to see if we could draw any conclusions from that to determine what was going on (see below). Most of the area was covered by cloud types identified as 'water' or 'mixed phase'. However, there were a few spots of 'cirrus' classification over WV nearby where the CI nowcast should have been made. It seemed on visible and IR satellite that this may not have been the case, but this is hard to determine for sure. Jordan suggested that because there were these spots nearby that they may have been contaminating the spatial tests required by the algorithm to flag an area as filtered cloud-top cooling, and thus not allow for a CI nowcast to be made. This may be a fluke case where nothing can be done, but it may be useful to examine this in more detail to see if something can be improved.



UW-CIMSS Cloud typing product for 1832 (top left), 1845 (top right), 1902 (bottom left), and 1915 UTC (bottom right) on 16 June 2010. Area of interest noted by red circle.