ABQ: Comparison of NEARCAST and RAP CAPE

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

While waiting for convection to become surface-based, we overlaid CIMSS NEARCAST 780-500MB CAPE with RAP 850-700MB CAPE.  As I mentioned in a post yesterday, I realize that these two CAPEs were not meant to be compared together as they are computed and sampled differently. But FWIW, I did the comparison at 2200 UTC and was surprised how well they compared.

The axis of CAPE in the RAP from NW of Roswell to the NE corner of NM seems suspicious, given the density of surface observations (see image). Other than that feature, the comparison seems generally good. Perhaps the RAP uses satellite estimates of theta-e or CAPE already.  Something to research.