GOES-R CI Confirms Severe Thunderstorm Initiation near Red River

051513 2045 UTC GOES-R CI and Reflectivity

The GOES CI product detected a 60% yellow area at 2045 UTC. By 2115 UTC, a thunderstorm had developed in this yellow area. This storm strengthened and prompted the issuance of a Severe Thunderstorm Warning by 2205 UTC. Baseball hail was reported by this storm at 2212 UTC, and a tornado was observed around 2242 UTC. The CI product gave about 20-30 minute lead time for storm development, 75-90 minute for severe weather, and nearly 120 minutes of lead time for the weak tornado.

051513 2115 UTC GOES-R CI and Reflectivity

051513 2045 UTC GOES-R CI and Reflectivty

Scotten

First Total Lightning Ops Day

Wednesday is shaping up to be the first ops day to use total lightning data for the Spring Program this year. The main area of focus will be in central Oklahoma using observations from the Oklahoma Lightning Mapping Array.

This year, there will be two additional products added to the lightning product list. In 2010, NASA's Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) program developed the pseudo Geostationary Lightning Mapper (PGLM) product. This was a simple algorithm that could be applied to any ground-based total lightning network. While it is not the official Algorithm Working Group proxy product, it was designed to be used at the Spring Program until the proxy is available. The PGLM is simply a tool to train forecasters about total lightning and the Geostationary Lightning Mapper, and a way to work with forecasters to determine the best way to use the 8 km resolution data. Addtionally, this product gives end users the opportunity to discuss new ways to better visualize these data.

Based on feedback from the 2010 Spring Program and SPoRT's efforts to enhance the visualizations, two new PGLM products have been introduced for 2011. These are the flash initiation density and the maximum flash density (MFD) products. Figure 1 shows the original PGLM (1 minute data, bright color) overlaid with the MFD (60 minute history, faded color). The MFD shows the largest PGLM value for each grid box for either 60 or 120 minutes. It is effective to show a basic trend in lightning activity over time. In Figure 1 below, taken at 1446 UTC on 11 May 2011, the MFD shows a large amount of lightning activity from storms as they entered western Oklahoma. However, the PGLM data show that these storms have greatly diminished in lightning activity. Figure 2 shows the corresponding radar reflectivity from KFDR.

FIGURE 1: The 60 minute maximum flash density (faded color) and the 1 minute pseudo geostationary lightning mapper flash extent density (bright color) taken at 1446 UTC. Note how the PGLM shows that the lightning activity has greatly diminished, both in magnitude and extent.

FIGURE 2: The corresponding radar reflectivity product from 1446 UTC to compare with the lightning products in FIGURE 1.