EWP: UW-CTC in areas of thin cirrus

The montage below demonstrates the improvement to the UW-CTC products to operate in areas of thin cirrus cloud cover during daytime hours.  This improvement was one of the largest deficiencies identified by forecasters in previous testbeds.  Diagnosing cloud-top cooling rates in presence of thin cirrus clouds is possible by inclusion of GOES daytime optical depth retrievals.   The UW-CTC rate at 2145 UTC 07 May 2012 was approximately -6 K / 15 min (lower left, figure 1); with further cooling of ~ -18 K / 15 min at 2215 UTC 07 May 2012 (lower left, figure 2).  By 2245 UTC the Dallas-Fort Worth radar indicated 50-55 dBZ composite reflectivity.  Another cell further west was not captured by the algorithm, possibly due to its position closer to colder anvil temperatures.

Figure 1. 

 Figure 2.

Figure 3.