HWT Satellite & Radar Spring Experiment -- week 3

Forecasters are becoming acquainted with the different products they will be evaluating this week. One team of forecasters have localized in Dodge City, KS awaiting initiation. Meanwhile, a small line of thunderstorms intensified in north-central KS, captured by the ProbSevere model (Figure 1). An official NWS warning was issued at 20:10 UTC, right after a ramp up in ProbHail and ProbWind. One-inch hail and 60 mph wind gusts have been reported in this line. Several forecasters have expressed that they like having the historical trends in the probabilities (Figure 2) and constituent predictors. Right now the time series capability is available only via the web, but we are working on incorporating this capability into the AWIPS-2 plug-in.

Fig. 1: ProbSevere contours, NWS warnings, and MRMS MergedReflectivity in SSEC RealEarth.

Fig. 2: ProbSevere products time series, which can be accessed via the web by clicking on an object ID (cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/severe_conv/probsev.html). The green, blue, and red time series record the ProbHail, ProbWind, and ProbTor values, respectively. The vertical red line marks the issuance time of a NWS warning.