This marks the end of this year's Spring Experiment in the HWT. We had a very productive 6 weeks of experiment with 32 NWS forecasters invited to participate in activities this year. I would like to thank all of those visiting scientists who came and participated with the forecasters during this year's activities. Without the help of the visiting scientists, it would have been difficult to capture all of the quality feedback that we did for the various GOES-R Proving Ground products. In addition, I would like to thank the local NSSL/SPC/NWS personnel that kept this thing running week-to-week. I would like to give special thank you to Darrel Kingfield at NSSL for putting together this year's Weather Event Simulator case for training and making AWIPS II ready for prime-time in the HWT. Finally, I would like to thank WDTB for organizing and running this year's weekly "Tales from the Testbed" webinars. They were a great success, giving the forecasters the opportunity to champion the products they found most useful to their peers across the country.
We already have a lot of exciting ideas to move forward over the next year in the HWT. In addition, I am sure there is still plenty of exciting weather to happen this year. I will be posting some examples of how the GOES-R Proving Ground products available to the Storm Prediction Center perform during these cases when possible. Stay tuned!
Friday, June 15, 2012
Final EWP weekly debrief
Today marks our final day in the Spring Experiment! We spent a couple hours prior to the weekly "Tales from the Testbed" webinar debriefing our final group of forecasters on their experience this week with the various products and the experiment overall.
SATCAST / UW Cloud-top Cooling
- "I'm going to go back to work and be asking my ITO during operations, 'where's the CTC product?'"
- "I thought both the CI products were very useful... the CI product (SATCAST), I like the idea of having the probabilities... I not sure that you really need the low ones (maybe under 50)... you weren't seeing CI with those values... There were some times where we would see some organization with some areas with low values and I started to think that something would happen, but nothing did... so I wonder if it might be misleading."
- "I think there is definitely benefit in forecasters having access to both of the CI products... I found myself comparing the two to each other a lot and gaining my confidence that something was really going on."
- "I wasn't sure how much usefulness there was over elevation (for both products)... which could be expected... you really need to be aware of your environment."
- "If you looked at the day where there were the Dallas supercells, I found it really useful... I actually warned on the CTC and it worked out well... It preceed the 60 dBZ and 1" mesh by about 20-30 minutes."
- "I tended almost to gravitate more to the CTC... the CI product had more false alarms, maybe not with the highest probabilities, but there were a lot of 70s that did nothing."
- "There was a lot of noise with the lower values in the CI product... I can easily go in and turn of anything below 50 in the color curve if I wanted to."
- "I had several cases where I would get a 70-75 on the CI and then there would be nothing on the CTC, and then 15 minutes later there would be something on the CTC and that usually resulted with 50 minutes or so of lead time."
- "I did find some blue areas with lower values... I'd rather see that than have nothing there."
- "A yes/no value is not the answer for something like this."
- "It would be nice to see a trend of if your CI forecast is increasing... some space and time averaging might be helpful."
- "I can see these being even more useful in RSO."
- "I was really pleased how the CTC product picked up on the bigger storms... I'd be curious to know how this would do over some of the more mediocre stuff."
- "The lead times with repect to the cooling rates seemed to correlate well to what we saw in the training material... there was one where we had 70 minutes lead time on severe."
- "We had one cell that had about an hour and a half lead time of severe from the CTC."
- "We had one cell that already had ongoing hail and then we saw an additional spike of CTC and there was additional development that eventually lead to a tornado... that was interesting to see."
- "Yesterday in Hastings we had a -34 C / 15 mins signal early on... there were some weaker storms ongoing at that time and it seemed like the stronger convection formed a little south of there afterwards... it definitely clued us in that something was going on."
- "An hour by hour verification over a one or several month period would be nice to see how these signals relate to things like trying to erode the cap."
Nearcast
- "The problem I had with this was the expansion of the 'black holes'... it came to be that after about 3 hours it became limited in usefulness... if there was some way to fill that in, I think it would be more useful."
- "It kept saying that there was an area of unstable airmass where you knew clearly the front had already moved through... forecasters need to keep an eye on the total picture."
- "I found it to be useful when I was in the HUN area... the instability kept showing up to the SE and I had some confidence that the storms would continue to maintain as they moved through the area."
- "On the boundary of the GOES-E and GOES-W domains, it would be nice to have some continuity from one product to the other." - It is anticipated that UW-CIMSS will do this in the future.
- "I wanted to see how the model based CAPE analysis compared to the Nearcast CAPE and they matched (at least in pattern) pretty well... I usually have to go to the web to get those analyses, so it would be nice to have something to compare to that. Having a forecast component to it as well was nice to have."
- "I can get used to the colors as long as there is a sharp enough contrast and they are consistent."
- "That day we had those storms in N. Mexico... that mid-level theta-e showed a nice moisture axis where storms ended up developing."
Simulated Satellite
- "I wish I could have looked at it more... a lot of the days we already had stuff going on when we walked in."
- "I think it would be helpful in a forecast office to see what the NSSL-WRF did in an easily interpretable forecast. It was pretty accurate on many occasions out to 30 hours. In this week it was very good on the initialization of the convection."
- "If you're trying to do short term forecasting it might not be so great, but when you're trying to get the bigger picture it's really great."
- "Have you guys thought about any sort of average error for the location of the storms?" - No, but this might be possible with the push to include this in ensembles... like with the CAPS ensemble simulated satellite imagery we are demonstrating in the EFP.
- "Some sort of probabilistic field might be useful for cold cloud tops are would be useful." - Again, this might be possible with an ensemble method.
- "I would use this as a quick first look."
- "It would be nice to have a 12 UTC run in there."
RGB Airmass
- "The differences are very subtle... it might be a little tricky to use in a forecast office... it would take some using to get used to."
- "It would definitely be useful in a synoptic sense."
PGLM
- "The first day in HUN's area... the total lightning was useful... we started to see an increase in total lightning and we issued a warning... then we started to see the radar returns begin to get deeper and stronger."
Overall / Training
- "It was really untimely that we would lose satellite for 30 minutes to an hour at 1800 and 2100 UTC." - Partially a full-disk scan issue and a known AWIPS II issue not being able to match GOES-E and GOES-W timestamps properly.
- "This was my third time here and I thought that this year's orientation was really good... well organized... it let us get to work right as we got here."
- "The WES case was pretty slick, I wish I had another one... I loaded it on my laptop and it was very effective."
- "I would almost like to see an abbreviated DRT-type case in addition to the job sheet method."
- "Setting up the procedures on the first day was a little difficult... when I found the ones that were created before, those are the ones I started using the rest of the week."
- "It was good having an experienced person who's been here before there to help you through what you guys wanted from our evaluations."
SATCAST / UW Cloud-top Cooling
- "I'm going to go back to work and be asking my ITO during operations, 'where's the CTC product?'"
- "I thought both the CI products were very useful... the CI product (SATCAST), I like the idea of having the probabilities... I not sure that you really need the low ones (maybe under 50)... you weren't seeing CI with those values... There were some times where we would see some organization with some areas with low values and I started to think that something would happen, but nothing did... so I wonder if it might be misleading."
- "I think there is definitely benefit in forecasters having access to both of the CI products... I found myself comparing the two to each other a lot and gaining my confidence that something was really going on."
- "I wasn't sure how much usefulness there was over elevation (for both products)... which could be expected... you really need to be aware of your environment."
- "If you looked at the day where there were the Dallas supercells, I found it really useful... I actually warned on the CTC and it worked out well... It preceed the 60 dBZ and 1" mesh by about 20-30 minutes."
- "I tended almost to gravitate more to the CTC... the CI product had more false alarms, maybe not with the highest probabilities, but there were a lot of 70s that did nothing."
- "There was a lot of noise with the lower values in the CI product... I can easily go in and turn of anything below 50 in the color curve if I wanted to."
- "I had several cases where I would get a 70-75 on the CI and then there would be nothing on the CTC, and then 15 minutes later there would be something on the CTC and that usually resulted with 50 minutes or so of lead time."
- "I did find some blue areas with lower values... I'd rather see that than have nothing there."
- "A yes/no value is not the answer for something like this."
- "It would be nice to see a trend of if your CI forecast is increasing... some space and time averaging might be helpful."
- "I can see these being even more useful in RSO."
- "I was really pleased how the CTC product picked up on the bigger storms... I'd be curious to know how this would do over some of the more mediocre stuff."
- "The lead times with repect to the cooling rates seemed to correlate well to what we saw in the training material... there was one where we had 70 minutes lead time on severe."
- "We had one cell that had about an hour and a half lead time of severe from the CTC."
- "We had one cell that already had ongoing hail and then we saw an additional spike of CTC and there was additional development that eventually lead to a tornado... that was interesting to see."
- "Yesterday in Hastings we had a -34 C / 15 mins signal early on... there were some weaker storms ongoing at that time and it seemed like the stronger convection formed a little south of there afterwards... it definitely clued us in that something was going on."
- "An hour by hour verification over a one or several month period would be nice to see how these signals relate to things like trying to erode the cap."
Nearcast
- "The problem I had with this was the expansion of the 'black holes'... it came to be that after about 3 hours it became limited in usefulness... if there was some way to fill that in, I think it would be more useful."
- "It kept saying that there was an area of unstable airmass where you knew clearly the front had already moved through... forecasters need to keep an eye on the total picture."
- "I found it to be useful when I was in the HUN area... the instability kept showing up to the SE and I had some confidence that the storms would continue to maintain as they moved through the area."
- "On the boundary of the GOES-E and GOES-W domains, it would be nice to have some continuity from one product to the other." - It is anticipated that UW-CIMSS will do this in the future.
- "I wanted to see how the model based CAPE analysis compared to the Nearcast CAPE and they matched (at least in pattern) pretty well... I usually have to go to the web to get those analyses, so it would be nice to have something to compare to that. Having a forecast component to it as well was nice to have."
- "I can get used to the colors as long as there is a sharp enough contrast and they are consistent."
- "That day we had those storms in N. Mexico... that mid-level theta-e showed a nice moisture axis where storms ended up developing."
Simulated Satellite
- "I wish I could have looked at it more... a lot of the days we already had stuff going on when we walked in."
- "I think it would be helpful in a forecast office to see what the NSSL-WRF did in an easily interpretable forecast. It was pretty accurate on many occasions out to 30 hours. In this week it was very good on the initialization of the convection."
- "If you're trying to do short term forecasting it might not be so great, but when you're trying to get the bigger picture it's really great."
- "Have you guys thought about any sort of average error for the location of the storms?" - No, but this might be possible with the push to include this in ensembles... like with the CAPS ensemble simulated satellite imagery we are demonstrating in the EFP.
- "Some sort of probabilistic field might be useful for cold cloud tops are would be useful." - Again, this might be possible with an ensemble method.
- "I would use this as a quick first look."
- "It would be nice to have a 12 UTC run in there."
RGB Airmass
- "The differences are very subtle... it might be a little tricky to use in a forecast office... it would take some using to get used to."
- "It would definitely be useful in a synoptic sense."
PGLM
- "The first day in HUN's area... the total lightning was useful... we started to see an increase in total lightning and we issued a warning... then we started to see the radar returns begin to get deeper and stronger."
Overall / Training
- "It was really untimely that we would lose satellite for 30 minutes to an hour at 1800 and 2100 UTC." - Partially a full-disk scan issue and a known AWIPS II issue not being able to match GOES-E and GOES-W timestamps properly.
- "This was my third time here and I thought that this year's orientation was really good... well organized... it let us get to work right as we got here."
- "The WES case was pretty slick, I wish I had another one... I loaded it on my laptop and it was very effective."
- "I would almost like to see an abbreviated DRT-type case in addition to the job sheet method."
- "Setting up the procedures on the first day was a little difficult... when I found the ones that were created before, those are the ones I started using the rest of the week."
- "It was good having an experienced person who's been here before there to help you through what you guys wanted from our evaluations."
Thursday, June 14, 2012
ABQ: CTC + Situational Awareness = Great Fcst
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
Although we are in AMA, we took a look at the CTC in NM, since that area has seen significant CTC signals over the last week. Once again, we are seeing strong CTC signals off the terrain in NM with little or no convective development. Here are a series of 3 signals in the same place over several hours. Take home point — this is a great product, however forecasters need to know their environment to use this product in enhanced warning ops and beware of times that the convection is being forced by the terrain. Case in point, although the CTC product showed -20->-25c/15min cooling values over higher terrain areas in SE NM, the sfc dwpts were in the teens and lower 20s. Almost no way convection could develop with this dry air.
2015z:
2215z:
2315z:
Although we are in AMA, we took a look at the CTC in NM, since that area has seen significant CTC signals over the last week. Once again, we are seeing strong CTC signals off the terrain in NM with little or no convective development. Here are a series of 3 signals in the same place over several hours. Take home point — this is a great product, however forecasters need to know their environment to use this product in enhanced warning ops and beware of times that the convection is being forced by the terrain. Case in point, although the CTC product showed -20->-25c/15min cooling values over higher terrain areas in SE NM, the sfc dwpts were in the teens and lower 20s. Almost no way convection could develop with this dry air.
2015z:
MPX: CTC -27c/15min in Brown County — Sign of more to come?
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
Just got -27c/15min in the CTC product in Brown County — just west of MPX CWFA. This corresponds well to a developing echo in central Brown County. Perhaps a sign of more severe weather shortly?
Just got -27c/15min in the CTC product in Brown County — just west of MPX CWFA. This corresponds well to a developing echo in central Brown County. Perhaps a sign of more severe weather shortly?
GID Update…Potential for Strong Storms Hall County and East Over the Next Hour
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
Strongest CTC indication yet on latest pass. Would issue an outlook for
strong storms may be developing in the next hour based on environment
and what we are seeing in the CTC rates.
GID Update…Looks Like Storms May be Starting to Go Up
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
CTC did a good job forecasting 45 minutes out the development of the
Polk county cluster that really got going as it crossed over into Butler
county in Omaha’s area.
The
2030Z pass of the CTC and CI products are starting to hint at
convective initiation across our area in the next hour or so. Here is a
look at the regional radar…
MPX: Potential New Severe Thunderstorm
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
Cloud top cooling product shows new potential, if only briefly. Max cooling reached <-22 degrees C. The area of concern is closer to the un-worked over air, but it will be moving into LaCrosse’s CWA soon. Might be able to warn on it before it moves out.
Cloud top cooling product shows new potential, if only briefly. Max cooling reached <-22 degrees C. The area of concern is closer to the un-worked over air, but it will be moving into LaCrosse’s CWA soon. Might be able to warn on it before it moves out.
FSD – should we be shifting to OAX (CTC)?
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
Cloud cover seems to be inhibiting convective initiation in FSD CWA. Looking toward OAX, CTC signature showing up over eastern Nebraska. CTC showing cooling rate of -24 degrees C/15 mins over Dodge/Cuming Counties in Nebraska. It also shows -19 degrees over Polk County NE at 2015z.
Reflectivity is increasing in the storms in these counties.
We have shifted to OAX and issued warning for Butler County. This
storm was associated with the previous CTC signature over Polk County in
Nebraska.
Cloud cover seems to be inhibiting convective initiation in FSD CWA. Looking toward OAX, CTC signature showing up over eastern Nebraska. CTC showing cooling rate of -24 degrees C/15 mins over Dodge/Cuming Counties in Nebraska. It also shows -19 degrees over Polk County NE at 2015z.
GID Waiting for the First Storms… A Few Early Indicators
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
Quiet on the southwestern front at this hour…but we are starting to
see a few echoes along the boundary. Latest OUNWRF wants to gen up a
few storms along the boundary in the next hour or two…but then really
gens up quite a bit of convection with a fairly large cold pool
generating towards the 5 PM hour.
Not many signals being noted in the CTC or the CI products at this
time, but we did get a CI 72 indication with a small tower going up on
the boundary on the previous pass…will see if anything comes of it.
Looking to the southwest upstream in the environmental flow, we note a
few Cu towers going up at a faster rate and thinking this activity could
move up into our area in the next 3 hours. See no reason why it won’t
get going to the southwest given available instability.
NRE theta-e products showing a fairly unstable airmass over the
area…and with near full insolation on the Cu field southeast of the
boundary we expect initiation in the next 2 hours across the forecast
area…
FSD – CTC signature just east of CWA at 1930z
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
Watching convection developing just past the FSD CWA line in Des Moines area as Cloud Top Cooling is showing a steady decrease in cloud top cooling rates from -8 degrees C/15 minutes over Pocahontas County IA at 1915z to -19 degrees C/15 minutes over Palo Alto County IA at 1932z.
Here is the KFSD reflectivity and enhanced echo top. Echo top was up to 37 kft on the storm in Pocahontas County IA at 1950z.
Update…this appears to be a false alarm as cell has continued to weaken and no cloud to ground lightning was indicated. Echo top reached 39kft before collapsing.
Watching convection developing just past the FSD CWA line in Des Moines area as Cloud Top Cooling is showing a steady decrease in cloud top cooling rates from -8 degrees C/15 minutes over Pocahontas County IA at 1915z to -19 degrees C/15 minutes over Palo Alto County IA at 1932z.
Update…this appears to be a false alarm as cell has continued to weaken and no cloud to ground lightning was indicated. Echo top reached 39kft before collapsing.
MPX: 1st warning of the day
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
Line of storms over Dakota and Rice County has intensified with MESH increasing to 1.73 inches at 1925Z. At 1900Z, composite updraft increased to 17 while we saw an increase of upper divergence. Expect large hail although this storm is right along the instability gradient so we could start to see some wind problems soon as 1km 3dvar wind shows 25+ m/s.
Line of storms over Dakota and Rice County has intensified with MESH increasing to 1.73 inches at 1925Z. At 1900Z, composite updraft increased to 17 while we saw an increase of upper divergence. Expect large hail although this storm is right along the instability gradient so we could start to see some wind problems soon as 1km 3dvar wind shows 25+ m/s.
EWP daily debrief 6/14
In light of rapid development of convection in MN, we decided to shorten the debrief in order to start operations as soon as possible. We will include more in depth feedback in tomorrow's thorough weekly debrief. Our forecasting teams will begin the day localized over Minneapolis, Sioux Falls and Hastings, and will likely shift around throughout the day. Stay tuned!
SATCAST / UW Cloud-top Cooling
- "The left-most storm in Dallas was captured well by the cloud-top cooling... it got to -21 C / 15 mins and 30 minutes later it had severe hail."
- "We had that one storm that developed over Mexico and it had -37 C / 15 mins and it gave a lead time of over an hour and really kept going after that... that really demonstrated the utility of those products... we couldn't use radar over there and we basically had to go with the cooling rate."
- "In Sioux Falls, the CTC on the splitting supercell gave an hour to hour and 15 minute lead time... that is a product that could be very useful in the field."
- "In ABQ we had the opposite, the terrain really kept firing stuff that showed up on the CTC but nothing became of it."
- "We got a signal of about -12.5 C / 15 mins and that gave us about a 15-20 minute lead time... otherwise, most of them under -16 C / 15 mins gave us false alarms, but anything greater than that was good."
Simulated Satellite
- "It did a very good job of timing the convection and location in NM... then we switched up to Sioux Falls and the timing was good as well, but the location was off by about 120 miles... Even if you only know the timing is good, you can tell people that you're confident something is going to happen and that's huge."
SATCAST / UW Cloud-top Cooling
- "The left-most storm in Dallas was captured well by the cloud-top cooling... it got to -21 C / 15 mins and 30 minutes later it had severe hail."
- "We had that one storm that developed over Mexico and it had -37 C / 15 mins and it gave a lead time of over an hour and really kept going after that... that really demonstrated the utility of those products... we couldn't use radar over there and we basically had to go with the cooling rate."
- "In Sioux Falls, the CTC on the splitting supercell gave an hour to hour and 15 minute lead time... that is a product that could be very useful in the field."
- "In ABQ we had the opposite, the terrain really kept firing stuff that showed up on the CTC but nothing became of it."
- "We got a signal of about -12.5 C / 15 mins and that gave us about a 15-20 minute lead time... otherwise, most of them under -16 C / 15 mins gave us false alarms, but anything greater than that was good."
Simulated Satellite
- "It did a very good job of timing the convection and location in NM... then we switched up to Sioux Falls and the timing was good as well, but the location was off by about 120 miles... Even if you only know the timing is good, you can tell people that you're confident something is going to happen and that's huge."
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
FSD – WRF Simulated imagery off on location but good on timing
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
After seeing the CIRA/CIMSS sim imagery do very well in ABQ, we switched to FSD where the sim imagery indicated deep convection developing between 2100-2200z, but the location of the convection was about 130mi ese of where convection developed in Tripp and Lyman counties in central SD.
WRF Simulated IR 10.4 valid at 13 Jun 2100z:
GOES IR 2100z:
GOES IR 2130z:
CTC 2132z in Tripp and Lyman Co:
GOES IR 2144z:
CTC 2144z in Tripp and Lyman Co:
WRF Simulated IR 10.4 valid at 13 Jun 2200z:
GOES IR 2200z:
GOES IR 2230z:
WRF Simulated IR 10.4 valid at 13 Jun 2300z:
GOES IR 2300z:
WRF Simulated IR 10.4 valid at 14 Jun 0000z:
GOES IR 14 June 0014z:
After seeing the CIRA/CIMSS sim imagery do very well in ABQ, we switched to FSD where the sim imagery indicated deep convection developing between 2100-2200z, but the location of the convection was about 130mi ese of where convection developed in Tripp and Lyman counties in central SD.
WRF Simulated IR 10.4 valid at 13 Jun 2100z:
FWD: ABQ We Have Left The Building
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
Switched domains to the FWD CWA. Ongoing supercell were producing hail over 2″ inches in diameter across eastern Dallas county. KFWS radar showing new supercell developing over the western portion of the county. Cloud top cooling product showed tops of >-21 degrees Celsius. Issued a severe thunderstorm warning based off both 88D reflectivity and cloud top cooling. Have since got reports of ping pong ball size hail.
KFWS radar at 2335z (warning issued on both storms):
Cloud top cooling product about 30 minutes before:
Switched domains to the FWD CWA. Ongoing supercell were producing hail over 2″ inches in diameter across eastern Dallas county. KFWS radar showing new supercell developing over the western portion of the county. Cloud top cooling product showed tops of >-21 degrees Celsius. Issued a severe thunderstorm warning based off both 88D reflectivity and cloud top cooling. Have since got reports of ping pong ball size hail.
KFWS radar at 2335z (warning issued on both storms):
CTC wins again
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
CTC on the Lyman/Buffalo County Storm peaked at around -21C/15min at 2145z. Just got a severe report at around 2247 of 1.75 inch hail with the storm in Lynam County so it looks like about a big hit for CTC.
CTC on the Lyman/Buffalo County Storm peaked at around -21C/15min at 2145z. Just got a severe report at around 2247 of 1.75 inch hail with the storm in Lynam County so it looks like about a big hit for CTC.
ABQ North: Perhaps a Breakthrough
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
Updraft in north central Colfax county may actually push the
severe limits. 40 dbz is reaching higher into the cloud (we are reaching
here). The visible cloud presentation has become more intriguing.
Lightning has also been detected with this thunderstorms for the first
time today.
Cloud top cooling product has shown -11 degrees C, well below our
severe threshold, but it is a start.. However, MESH is still
underwhelming despite the slight increase. We are still not confident in
much activity making off the higher elevations, and the latest run of
the OUN WRF continues to support our forecast.
Cloud-top cooling product:
MESH at the same time (look closely, it's there):
It’s getting bigger. MESH at 2214z is now up to 0.40″.
and as I write this, the temporary strengthening ceased. Now onto storms in the southern ABQ CWA.
Cloud-top cooling product:
ABQ South is now FSD ALL
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
We abandoned ship and moved way north to look at the development in SD. Good looking cell moving into Bruce County however the MESH is only up to 0.79. Will continue to monitor since this storm is in an area of 2000-2500 j/kg SBCAPE. Below is an image of the CIMSS CAPE and RUC13 SBCAPE (contour).
We abandoned ship and moved way north to look at the development in SD. Good looking cell moving into Bruce County however the MESH is only up to 0.79. Will continue to monitor since this storm is in an area of 2000-2500 j/kg SBCAPE. Below is an image of the CIMSS CAPE and RUC13 SBCAPE (contour).
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.
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.
Third MAF Warning…Jeff Davis County
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
Another strengthening storm developing over the northern slopes of the
Davis Mts. The UAH-CI gave us a 75 several minutes ahead of the
development…
2130z Update on Lincoln County Storm
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
Looks like the Lincoln County storm/shower is starting to diminish. Interestingly, the CTC product showed -25c but again, it was over the higher terrain. Today, it seems like whenever anything develops on the higher terrain, it moves off into the lower elevations and dies out. Suspect the storms still cannot realize that reservoir of SBCAPE to the east.
Looks like the Lincoln County storm/shower is starting to diminish. Interestingly, the CTC product showed -25c but again, it was over the higher terrain. Today, it seems like whenever anything develops on the higher terrain, it moves off into the lower elevations and dies out. Suspect the storms still cannot realize that reservoir of SBCAPE to the east.
MAF Second Warning for Persidio County
Forecaster comments from EWP blog...
Issued our second EXPERIMENTAL Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Persidio County.
Storm is showing strongest Cloud Top Cooling rates observed at 2202 UTC today around
-37C/15 min. This cell is over northern Mexico way out towards the
edge of the KMAF NexRad coverage…with 40 dBZ echo at 35 thousand feet.
We will see how this one pans out as it get closer in on the radar
coverage as it moves towards the Davis Mts. Here is the corresponding CI
imagery 15 minutes earlier at 2145 UTC…
Update… KMAF Echo Top shows storm west of the Rio Grande has increased to
54 kft at 2220z. This gave around 30 minute lead time before increase.
Update… storm over Mexico northwest of Candelaria intensified to over 64
dBZ at 2311z. The strong CTC signature gave a lead time of a little over
an hour for this intense storm.
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