HWT 2016 GOES-R/JPSS Spring Experiment Complete!

The 4 week GOES-R/JPSS Spring Experiment in the HWT completed today, May 13.

Week 4 complete!

The fourth and final week of the HWT 2016 GOES-R/JPSS Spring Experiment is complete! After starting out very busy on Monday with severe weather, including tornadoes, in the Norman CWA, the week quieted down. However, we certainly still had enough severe convective weather across the CONUS Tues-Thurs to keep our participants plenty busy evaluating the satellite products.

Huntsville and Nashville

Our forecasters are beginning the day in Huntsville, AL and Nashville, TN monitoring an eastward moving line of storms and some pop-up convection ahead of it.

Moving to SJT

The other duo of forecasters has grown weary of waiting for storms in DFW, so they moved to San Angelo, TX, with this monster storm waiting for them.

Moving to SGF

It was pretty clear that convection is meager in Peublo's CWA, so one forecaster duo moved to Springfield, MO, hoping to capture developing convection building back across eastern Missouri behind an ongoing MCS.

Dallas/Fort Worth, TX and Pueblo, CO

Our forecasters are beginning the day in a high CAPE / low shear setup in DFW and a high shear / low CAPE environment in Pueblo. Initiation is expected in both regions within the next two hours.

May 10, 2016 GOES-R/JPSS PG experiment

Our forecasters are starting the day in San Angelo and Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX, in anticipation of convection firing on a dryline in a loaded thermodynamic environment characterized by 3000-5000 J/kg of CAPE.

Week 4 Day 1 wrap-up

While the group in FWD had a relatively quiet day, the Norman pair had a very busy day, including issuing warnings storm which produced a strong tornado. See below for 1-min animation looking at the tornado-producing storm south of the OKC metro.

Week 3 Complete!

Although a much quieter week (severe-weather-wise) compared to last, we still had quite a productive time in the HWT. Monday was the busiest day of the week, with widespread severe weather in the Mid-Atlantic states, including a storm that moved through the DC metro. Tuesday was similarly active, while Wednesday and Thursday were our least active days of the experiment. These days allowed the forecasters to evaluate the products in more marginal environments, which is equally as important as the busy days. Thursday the groups got to operate in the western US, where radar coverage is not as good, making the satellite products even more important there.

Below is a photo from the week 3 Tales from the Testbed webinar.

Week 3 Day 4 (05 May 2016) begins

The final day of opreations for Week 3 has begun. Operations shifted to the Western US for the first time this year, with one group in Boise and the other in Pendleton. Guidance from the EFP indicates severe storms should develop across eastern Oregon this afternoon / early evening.

Week 3 Day 3 Complete

Week 3 Day 3 (May 4, 2016) of the HWT 2016 GOES-R/JPSS Spring Experiment certainly was the quietest day of this 4 week experiment thus far. Particpants worked the Miami and Memphis CWA's. The group in Miami moved to Tampa about midway through the shift. Convection stayed subsevere for both groups.

Quiet days like this, however, do have their benefits. Particpants had ample time to really interrogate each of the products, providing more detailed blog posts than is sometimes possible on the busy days.

For tomorrow, we look forward to moving to the western US for the first time this year.

Wednesday May 4 EWP Shift begins at 11:30 am

The EWP shift for 5/4 has begun. Today looks to be our quietest severe day of the experiment. One group is operating in the Miami CWA where convection is ongoing and expected to strengthen. The other group is starting in the Memphis CWA, where a cold-core low is advancing through the region. With strong flow aloft and weak isntability, thunderstorms close to severe criteria are expected to develop.

Tuesday May 3 operations concludes

Operations on Tuesday in the EWP is complete. The Raleigh group had a busy day with strong-severe storms present throughout the shift. Columbia started out busy, but wined down. That group moved to Wilmington NC, before ending in Tallahassee FL.

Below is an animation of LAP CAPE with IR imagery overlaid.

Tuesday May 3 EWP operations begins at 11:30 am

Operations today began at 11:30 am. We remain on the East Coast, with groups operating in the Raleigh NC and Columbia SC CWA's.

Week 3 begins!

Week 3 of the HWT GOES-R/JPSS Spring Experiment has begun. We start this week where we ended last week - the Mid-Atlantic. The two groups are operating in the Sterling and Blacksburg CWA's. Below is a recent GOES-14 1-min visible animation of the region.

Week 2 complete!

Week 2 (of 4) of the Hazardous Weather Testbed 2016 GOES-R/JPSS Spring Experiment is now complete! Week 2 was a relatively active week allowing participants to test the products in various regions of the US. After starting in Milwaukee and Chicago on Monday, participants worked primarily in Norman and Wichita on Tuesday, where widespread severe weather took place. Forecasters moved to the Kansas City and St Louis CWA's on Wednesday, before finish the week on the East Coast in the Raleigh and Blacksburg CWA's.

Bill Line, SPC/HWT Satellite Liaison

From left; Kristin Calhoun (OU/CIMMS and NSSL), Monte Oaks (WFO New Braunfels, TX), Ben Herzog (WFO Milwaukee / Sullivan, WI), Bryan Jackson (WFO Sterling, VA), Bryan Schuerman of WBOY-TV (West Virginia), Tiffany Meyer (OU/CIMMS and NSSL), Bill Line (OU/CIMMS and NOAA/SPC).

Bryan Schuerman, our broadcaster participant for the week, shot live stories on Wednesday for stations in West Virginia.

Operations update: A great day in Missouri!

Today turned out to be fairly active day in the Kansas City and St Louis CWA's. Deep convection began fairly early in the afternoon in the Kansas City area, leading that group into warning operations and heavy use of the 1-min imagery, ProbSevere and Lightning Jump. The St Louis group had a lot more time early in the shift to interrogate tools such as 1-min imagery, CI, NUCAPS, LAP, and the satellite-derived winds, before eventually transitioning to warning ops.

The 1-min visible animation below depicts the ongoing deep convection across S Iowa and N Missouri, with newer development along the Missouri/Illinois border.

Tuesday, April 26 EWP shift: 1 pm - 9pm

Tuesday, April 26 EWP shift: 1 pm - 9pm


SPC 13z Day 1 Convective Outlook:

OUN 12Z RAOB:

Morning SRSOR 1-min visible imagery over OK and N TX shows low clouds in place and gravity waves traversing the region.

HWT 2016 Week 2 is underway

Week 2 of the HWT 2016 GOES-R/JPSS Spring Experiment is well underway. This looks to be quite an active weather week, with an SPC Moderate risk for severe out for Tuesday across the central plains. Today, participants are working in the Milwaukee and Chicago CWA's.

Bill Line, SPC/HWT Satellite Liaison

Week 1 (18-22 April 2016) Summary and Feedback

For the final day of the week, our groups participated in the Lincoln, St. Louis, and San Antonio CWA's. Below are final comments from participants recorded during the end-of-the-week debrief.

LAP
- I would like to see theta-e and theta-e difference computed from this.
- I would like the LPW layers to different (sfc-850, 850-700, 700-500, 500-300). 500-300 is valuable for diagnosing heavy rainfall, extending to 700 washes the signal out. You also might see ll dry layers better in the 850-700 layer.
- There needs to be a strong push to make LPW baseline with GOES-R
- Patterns in the fields matched up with what I expected.
- It was cool to see moisture evolution tracing the terrain
- Convection typically initiated along the gradients.
- We thought the fields looked really good.

CI
- All like the idea of having a regular CI and severe CI
- In Illinois yesterday, marginal fairly widespread mostly sub-severe convection. Days like this is where Severe CI would be helpful in telling us that developing convection would remain non-severe.
- CI is good for a quick glance, then I dive deeper into other tools.
- sub-30% just cluttered up screen, so I would make this transparent.
- Sometimes the display was too overwhelming.

Probsevere
- I didn't like the color curve at first, but by the end of the week I really liked it.
- Dual-Pol fields might help with Tor probabilities, theta-e difference for winds
- I envision a 4-panel display with ProbSevere, ProbWind, ProbHail, ProbTor
- A Hydo ProbSevere would be helpful.
- It would have to be alittle more dynamic in terms of predictors used in varying regimes. It didn't seem to perform well in High CAPE, low shear situations. Perhaps in such cases, less emphasis should be put on MESH.

1-min imagery
- I was fine with the appearance of the parallax-corrected imagery

Satellite-derived winds
- Yesterday the winds confirmed a mid-level jet coming around the base of the low in the 600-700 mb layer.
- These could be helpful in depicting the nocturnal LLJ
- These could be helpful for hydro situations, especially with terrain.
- I like the idea of deriving LL shear from the surface obs to the visible winds. This could be helpful for TAFS also.
- Models generally don't do very well with winds in the low-levels, making these important.

Lightning Jump
- I thought it had predictive skill for severe convection
- I'd like to see a transparent or contour display
- I think I would mostly look at the 5-min max. It would be nice if this told me the exact time of the jump.
- I'd like to see the addition of a trend graph.
- Some sort of table or a separate app to monitor products, including ProbSevere, in real-time would be nice.

GLM
- I recommend contouring flash density, as opposed to the pixel look, for overlaying purposes.
- A colortable simialr to ProbSevere would be a good option. Brighter display with increasing density.
- I like to overlay lightning data on radar or satellite.
- It will be helpful to have condensed, quick reference material available for using lightning data while on shift.
- Climo that will come out of GLM will be helpful.
- Some blended total lightning product would b helpful
- Offices may need a lightning FP given all of the different lightning data. This is a training issue.
- NWS forecasters are not used to incorporating lightning into their forecast products, they are behind the curve. Part of the problem is training, part is people needing to get out of their comfort zones.

NUCAPS
- Modifications to the sfc/low-levels are a necessity. We need to see the CAP.
- In it's current state, I think it is a tough sell. But if we are able to incorporate the automatic adjustments, it'll be easier to show others the benefits.
- I would like to see weighting functions/sensitivity functions for the information used in NUCAPS>