The week in the review

Working with the forecasters this week of Mother's day has been comprised of relative slow weather, at least as defined by people who live for the next severe weather event. Due to the relative calmness of the atmosphere, the visiting forecasters have had the opportunity to really dig into the tools presented to them in cases that most would consider marginal. As such, they each had time to interrogate each of the tools, both to test their individual strengths and weakness, as well as how the tools could be used together to give them a more complete picture of the near storm environment and the elements leading up to each interesting case.

The role of a convective initiation algorithm is to give indications of clouds that are exhibiting signs of growth associated with a developing storm. One that will produce a 35 dBZ radar echo, meaning at least rain, possibly more. The UAH CI product, or SATCAST is designed to give the user information, based on IR brightness temperature tests, of how a tracked cloud has grown/changed since the last satellite image. This signal will precede the radar echo, giving the forecaster knowledge of the environment of interest and, depending on the strength of the signal, and area to focus on. The blog has some great examples of the use of the UAH CI/UW CTC products used in collaboration to highlight areas of interest, to many to mention here, and real, the forecasters have done a fabulous job of describing the different cases presented during the week. Instead, I will focus on the ways the products were used and displayed. 

An obvious choice, placing the CI/CTC product on top of a visible satellite image. Regardless of the level of zoom, this setup allows for the familiar imagery to have a bit more utility. 

Utilizing the 4-panel display allows for the flexibility to view the data sets separately.

ALY - 16May12, 2010z

Some different set ups have included lightning data, radar data, and some of the newer products from the MRMS and Near-Cast suite of tools.

An example of the combination of tools made possible by the AWIPS-2 display, the Merged Reflectivity at the lowest altitude display from  the MRMS with the UAHCI and UW-CTC products overlaid allows one to follow the evolution of a cloud object by the satellite products through to the first radar echoes and beyond.

DVN - 15 May 12 2206z

In some cases, outflow boundaries from the storms would trigger additional satellite CI indications that also progress in time to initiation. The ability for the individual control of the color schemes of each of the products made the visualization of these three products simultaneously possible.

Finally, as day passed into night, overlaying the products over an IR image.

 

17 May 12, 2214z

Although the intent of having the product scientists on hand to answer the questions of the forecasters, in many ways, we spend more time learning from them.  Seeing how each forecaster uses the product, what their expectations are, and tapping into their vast knowledge of the storm environment from the operational perspective forces a different perspective.  One that should result in the fine tuning of the algorithms from something that is "geeky cool" to something that can be used everyday.