The final week of the 2016 GOES-R/JPSS Spring Experiment concluded with our two pairs operating in the Nashville and Huntsville CWAs. Both were able to evaluate the PGLM product via the Huntsville LMA.
LAP
- Convection developed along the moisture and instability gradients in LAP.
- I liked seeing the model data where retrievals were unavailable. In addition to having a continuous field, it often allowed for quick comparisons of retrievals with nearby GFS.
- Our office does look at K-Index for flash flood situations.
- 30-min is a good temporal update frequency. Too frequent of updates would not be that useful, as such fields do not change so rapidly.
- Layer PW was my favorite LAP product as it was most unique, and added value to my analysis. It was particularly useful on days when we had strong low-level moisture advection, tracking the movement of moisture, and dry air aloft.
GOES-R CI
- When I had 1-min imagery, I did not need CI because I could identify areas of imminent CI in the imagery.
- In situations where you are expecting severe thunderstorm activity, you's look more at severe CI. Regular CI was not as useful for severe situations because you could see cb development in the 1-min data.
- When looking for general thunderstorms, I see CI being more helpful, including in the cool season. This would be valuable for DSS purposes.
- I found utility in having both CI products up. If severe CI was pinging on something in addition to regular CI, it helped to focus attention to particular areas of interest.
- It would be helpful to see probability trends for a particular cloud/area.
- We were fine with the display concept
- I like the current instantaneous visualization over a smoothed probability field approach.
ProbSevere
- It would be nice to see a meteogram with a history of ProbSevere probs.
- Everyone is fine with the display and color-scale.
- Similar to VIL of the day, might be helpful to determine "ProbSevere Prob" of the day.
- I think it really well with discrete cells, but later would merge nearby cells.
- I would say this was my favorite product outside of the 10min imagery.
- I thought it performed great this week.
- We would all use this in operations.
- I've worked 5 or 6 severe events in the last month, and I've ProbSevere up for all of them. Usually I have storm relative velocity all tilts, regular velocity in the middle, and the third screen has different fields, including composite reflectivity with ProbSevere. I've also even started putting it on all-tilts. The display does not distract me. In my office, the threshold to warn depends on the day, but I've found with most of our events, especially with severe wind, we can get severe with a threshold of ~60%. Definitely not using it as a yes/no.
SRSOR
- All forecasters loved using it this week!
- 5-min is certainly bettern than 15. But when you are tracking low-end severe situations, subtle boundaries can make all the difference between something going up or not. We get better than 5-min radar data, but 1-min satellite data can fill gaps that we still have. 5-min will be useufl, but 1-min is optimal.
- I think it is certainly time to make the jump to 1-min satellite imagery. There is so much that can be seen, even outside of convection. Forecasters need to use satellite data more in day to day operations. Generally, I think forecasters don't think satellite imagery is as useful as it is, and they have a hard time understanding exactly how much they will see in the 1-min imagery.
- It was helpful to view long loops of the 1-min imagery on the regional scale to get a big picture idea of how the system was evolving.
- It was really helpful for analyzing frontal structure and all the different boundaries.
- Satellite imagery is truly the only visual representation you have of a storm that you can't get with any other product.
- I found it useful to match 1-min lightning data with 1-min satellite data.
SRSOR Winds
- I liked the winds a lot. You could see the vertical structure of a front, and how winds changed with height from the surface. Seeing rapid change over a short vertical distance was intriguing. AMV's could be a big help with our TAFs.
- I felt that the low-level winds were more useful than the upper-level winds. They indicated areas of low-level convergence, moisture transport, veering of winds from the surface, potential for tornadoes.
Lightning Jump
- I liked it more as the week went on. I usually used it in tandem with ProbSevere and PGLM Flash Extent Density. I could see all of these being in a 4-panel and helping with situational awareness for severe operations. Especially on Thursday, I noticed the storms with the biggest LJ's were the ones that strengthened considerably thereafter.
- I'll be interested to use this during cool season events, as I am always looking for more information in these situations.
- I like the way it is now, though I can see others preferring a contoured look.
- I like a 4-panel layout with ProbSevere, lightning jump, Severe CI, Lightning, composite reflectivity, and satellite imagery.
- Forecasters are/will always change to their preferred color tables.
- There will always be a spot for a product like Lightning Jump in my display.
GLM Total Lightning
- The lightning data will be very helpful for DSS - events, fairs, etc. It will be very helpful to have this information updating every 1 minute.
- Especially for cool season events, we are always looking for more data. Lightning from satellite will be helpful.
- I can see this being helpful in EM's decisions to evacuate stadiums.
- This will be big for us during fire weather season in the NW US.
- In the future, with lightning in field offices, there must be very good training on all of this. There is/will be a lot of different lightning data. Generally, forecasters do not know the differences in lightning verbage.
- I will likely overlay it on radar or satellite.
- LMA-1 was the favorite among the group
NUCAPS
- The plan view and cross-section components were my favorite aspect of NUCAPS this week
- The lure is that it is an observation. I think it should remain observationally driven, even though we know there could be a source of error. If so, we know the source of the error. If you add in model data, you don't always know the source of the error.
- Pop-up skew-T will be good to use before and during an event with NUCAPS.
- Modification is not an issue for me. In our office we modify RAP soundings all the time. It takes some time, but it works.
- NUCAPS has a lot of potential, but a lot of bust potential for captivating an office.
- I can't get anyone to look at it in my office in Portland.
- The lack of detail is a killer. That's why I think plan view and cross section displays are more valuable.
- People will use it if they see the value, and it is made clear that this is an observation.
General
- Participants felt that the start of week orientation/familiarization was great.
- It was the perfect amount of products to evaluate.
- It would be nice to have a DRT WES case for slow days.
- I suggest having a group briefing after the groups complete their mesoscale analysis but before CI.
- The broadcaster commented that this was a great experience, and it was wonderful to be able to work directly with NWS forecasters.
- Some of the training material should be put on the CLC so we can go back and look at it in the future.
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