Daily Summary: Week 4, Day 3 (4 June 2014)

Today, we operated in 4 county warning areas:

Team 1 (Fowle & Anderson)

Louisville, KY
Springfield, MO
Cheyenne, WY
Team 2 (Pelczynski & Satterfield)

Boulder, CO
Early in the day, it appeared that the greatest severe threat would exist in the MS/OH valley region.  Additionally, there were enough breaks in the high-level clouds to allow for use of the GOES-R satellite products.  However, as the day progressed, it became apparent that the region would not destabilize as much, so we moved Team 1 to Springfield, MO (based on a favorable mesoscale discussion).  As it turns out, the capping inversion would hold over that area.  Thus, we moved Team 1 to Cheyenne, WY – hoping that we could catch some lightning data from the LMA in Denver.  A few marginally-severe storms did develop.

Team 2 remained in Boulder all day.  There, they used the GOES-R products extensively, including the NearCast, UAH CI, Probability of Severe, and lightning data.  Several severe storms developed, though only one severe report was officially logged (for a landspout tornado).

-G. Garfield
Week 4 Coordinator

*** Day 3 Feedback (Bill Line): ***

Simulated Satellite Imagery
- Spot on yesterday. As far as overall timing and development, it was really good. The fact that it picked up on little features early gave me confidence in the rest of the forecast
- Not as good in Missouri area.
- Burning off stratus too quickly seems to be a recurring issue with the model

Nearcast:
- I liked it yesterday, particularly because as we sat down there was convection getting going, related to theta-e diff gradients, you could predict where they would move based on the nearcast forecast.
- We looked at it for a good 2 hours
- Theta-e values were pegging where it finally developed in far northwestern NE

Goes-r CI
- Looked at in with the other products in the 4 panel
- In Kentucky, it was bubbly, weak CIN,  a lot of low values that jumped around, noisy field, didn't see values over 60%
- It triggered on a few but we were already on them.
- Might be better for larger areas of monitoring (larger than CWA)

Prob severe
- Sometimes it is a nice confirmation of what we already concluded
- With rapidly developing convection, storms went severe within a few scans, prob severe lag kind of hurt it
- With gradually developing storms, it may be more of a confidence builder to issue a warning
- In broadcast world, this is valuable in pinpointing a storm to look at
- One went 16 to 60 in one scan, making me look at the storm
- In Louisville, a lot were hanging in low range, it told us what environment would be like that day, very low end, bubbly stuff
- The values it showed us were helpful (predictors) to see
- Satellite ingest made a huge difference (with satellite data compared to without)
- Tells us what is the trend of the day, perculating stuff, or fast growing
- With trends it was somewhat helpful with dissipating storms, you could see that chances of it being severe were becoming less. Caused me to look at it more
- There was a lag between when I issued a warning based on prob severe and when NWS finally issued

overshooting tops
- I can see, with mcs’s, having this info is useful, you can see where stronger storms are in a complex, you have a long line, key in on these areas.

Pglm and LJ:
- I could see reflectivity increase 15 to 20 min after lightning jumped up. Tracking tool helped me see this. I think both of them together is valuable
- The lightning jumps led to me quickly issue a warning with rapidly developing storm in boulder.
- I used just lightning data to issue warnings,
- Using FED in conjunction with LJ was a red flag that storm was rapidly increasing in strength
- I thought it was really good yesterday
- LJ- I find it useful and like being able to see when it jumps,
- Option for max LJ over last 5 mins would be great. Still update every minute though. (Running max). So that I don’t miss an LJ in the rapidly updating product.

Tracking Tool
- I like the idea and concept of it, compare trends in fields and different storms. But there are a lot of problems
- Looks like I have to load all products first, then load  tool
- I crashed my system
- Very handy with lightning and reflectivity
- May be more useful to look back at archive data. Research tool
- In real time, it takes too long to work, you don’t have that much time. Maybe just the warning coordinator
- Its not telling you a lot different than what you can see