ABQ - First look at CI Probs

2145Z: Latest HRRR has backed off on convection this evening over southern NM, with the ongoing clusters north of ABQ likely remaining the main event. However, the last couple HRRR runs have suggested a lone supercell tries to develop across southern NM so decided to analyze the CI probability & Severe CI probability across this area.

The first issue was deciding which GOES satellite to use, east or west. Obviously I would prefer to use the higher spatial & temporal resolution with GOES 16, but the ABQ WFO is getting near the edge of the GOES 16 disk. Data is available in AWIPS for the astern half of the CWA (east of I-40) but I don't know how much I can trust the data this far from the nadir.

Looping through about an hour of data I see a lot of sporadic jumps in probabilities for both the CI & Severe CI products. On the Severe CI product gif below, values are generally low around 10% but the product will often jump up to 50% or even 100% & back to 10% from frame to frame. While the values overall remain low & no increasing trend is evident, the sporadic increases in data lead to lower confidence & trust in the data. Similar but less extreme jumps in values were evident in the baseline CI product. I did notice a slight trend in increasing CI probabilities but we're only talking from 10% to 30-40% so I'm no longer expecting much in the way of development across southern NM this afternoon. I really like viewing the CI data overlaid on GOES-16 Channel 2 visible imagery to better identify the cu clusters that may be the next to initiate.

I also looked at the CI & Severe CI probs from GOES West. It's tough going back to the coarse resolution & 15-minute imagery of GOES-15 when you've had a taste of the new & improved GOES-16. In our current GOES-16 world I guess I'm just too impatient to wait 15 minutes for data & it was hard to zero in on favored areas of cu development with the coarse resolution "blobs" . The values for CI & severe CI generally matched up well with the values from GOES-16 so that bodes well for the tuning of the GOES-16 product.