SATCAST improvements identified

SATCAST CI nowcast overlaid on visible satellite imagery for 1945 (top left), 2002 (top right), 2015 (mid left), 2033 (mid right), and 2045 UTC (bottom center) on 17 June 2010.
Today we were able to remedy the issues we were having with the SATCAST product within our NAWIPS system. While examining today's potential severe weather outbreak over ND/MN/IA I noticed a few issues that have been relayed to the developers for future improvements. The product did not detect development over southwestern MN where some obvious convective initiation occurred between 1945 and 2045 UTC (see images above). We examined the cloud object detections provided within the output (see images below) and noticed that this area was not widely flagged as having any cloud objects within it. I discussed this with the developers and it was determined that because the clouds were developing so rapidly, the 15-minute cloud typing product used by SATCAST produced cloud types that changed so rapidly that the SATCAST algorithm's quality control threw them out. It should be noted that GOES-13 was operating in RSO during the course of the day, but due to limited computing resources it is not possible to run the product outside of the 15 minute CONUS scans at the moment. It is theorized that this issue would not exist given that the product was able to utilize RSO scans. This does help highlight a major benefit of utilizing higher temporal resolution data that will be available continuously when GOES-R is operational.



SATCAST CI nowcasts (red) and detected objects (blue) for 1945 (top left), 2002 (top right), 2015 (bottom left) and 2045 UTC (bottom right) on 17 June 2010. Note that the 2033 UTC image was not generated and the 2045 UTC image has no objects or CI nowcasts.
It also seemed as though the product was not producing output for the 2032 and 2045 UTC time periods (see images above). I also mentioned this to the developers and they discovered that the algorithm could not handle the scanning schedule changes that occurred with GOES-13 RSO. The algorithm has been changed to accommodate the scan schedule and the output has resumed.