Today marks the last day of the last week of the experiment. As is tradition, we debriefed the EWP visiting forecasters on their experiences throughout the week...
Convective Initiation
- (Thursday event - N.E.) Cloud-top cooling products seemed to work in diagnosing the strength of storms on the southwest edge of the line that were newly developing.
- Even though CI didn't always occur... false hits were useful in identifying clouds trying to break the cap.
- Forecasters not interested in seeing a binary yes/no output.
- "There were instances where similar looking clumps of Cu that one would flag for CI but the other wouldn't... so I wasn't sure how to interpret that other than maybe this area was more conducive to further development."
- There are lots of products that provide you lead time on CI, the real question would be on the consistency of the output.
- "I would definitely look at this in my WFO... especially the cooling-tops product gave me a lot of information on the relative strengths of the storms."
- "If both groups could work together and come up with a probabilistic product that combined the strengths of the UAH and the UWCI products, that would be very useful."
- "I think from a purely public forecast perspective, especially this time of year where we get convection every day, it would help you identify when exactly CI will occur."
- Would be very valuable for nocturnal CI.
Nearcast
- (Thursday event - N.E.) "I didn't see a whole lot of trend in terms of gradients developing, but all the sudden on the back side of the squall-line we lost data rapidly, probably due to cloud cover... compared to the other days, I didn't see any real patterns."
- (Thursday event - KS/OK) Showed an arch of destabilization between 2200-0300 across the eastern halves of OK and KS... storms formed on the western edge of this gradient and forecaster did not expect the storms to diminish anytime soon and thus increased warning confidence... stronger wording regarding hail/wind potential in warning was issued.
- There seemed to be small scale features in the fields, areas of relative maximum that were moving around... would be nice to compare to radar evolution and see how those areas affected the storm structure.
- Helped understand why convection occurred and where it would occur... definitely the 1-6 or 1-9 hour timeframe was the most useful aspect of it.
- Having a 4-panel set up of the individual layers in addition to the difference field to help increase the understanding of the product.
- The color-table in AWIPS was poor... Also, the values were reversed from those in NAWIPS and on the web. The individual layers of PW were also not available in AWIPS.
Would it be useful to extend the Nearcast another 3 hours, even if that meant smoother fields?
- "I like the high resolution out to whenever we can have it... it seemed that there was definitely information within the gradients... of course if you add 3 hours, we will definitely take that."
Would you have used the observations without it being advected forward?
- Wouldn't have been as useful... It helped determine the evolution of the environment... The forecast parts tended to build areas of increased instability that helped provide guidance on what was going to happen later on.
Overshooting-top / Thermal Couplet
- (Thursday event - KS/OK) None were detected when forecasters expected to see detections, so was not used, especially with the rapid updates of radar data.
- Need to remember to turn icon density to "MAX" within AWIPS or some detections will be lost.
- Looked at pretty much every day... for the most part, operator identified OTs occurred before the algorithm did.
Pseudo-GLM
- (Thursday event - OK) Some of the storms to the east had higher flash rates, but this was an artifact of the LMA network's detection efficiencies.
- (Thursday event - OK) Flash rates would pick up a short time before increases in reflectivity.
- Was useful for diagnosing lightning danger... get a lot of calls from the public regarding that within the WFO.
Overall
- Would definitely help to have some pre-configured procedures before forecasters arrived... forecasters used the "ultimate CI" procedure heavily and liked to see what we think they should be combining to help enhance the utility of the products. Forecasters can then adjust the color-scales for their own preferences.
- "I liked the morning/evening shift idea... that was nice... got to experience something different everyday."
- Sometimes the forecasters would get to tied into warning operations mode and forget to look at the experimental products... would be nice to make sure that the forecasters understand that there is no real pressure and to take their time to examine all of the experimental stuff.
- Would have been useful to provide the forecasters with the training via visitview prior to arrival, as well as some cases that the forecasters could use to get familiar with the products and decrease spin-up time... This would have to be done very far in advance.
- Interaction with the EFP CI desk was not done because there were so many participants over in the area.
- EFP/EWP daily briefing was seen to be repetitive between all the groups and not very "brief" as one forecaster stated. Also, the information being provided was more academic than pure weather discussion.
- WE NEED MORE CHAIRS!
Showing posts with label Overshooting-tops / Thermal Couplet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Overshooting-tops / Thermal Couplet. Show all posts
Friday, June 10, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Overshooting-top/thermal couplets over Wichita, KS not detected
EWP forecasters are in the act of warning on storms across KS and OK. One of the more notable storms this evening formed west of Wichita, KS and began moving east towards the northern part of the city. The storm had a very nice hook echo and many reports of funnel clouds and large hail. The forecasters were asked to examine the overshooting-top / thermal couplet products while they were making their warnings. Unfortunately no overshooting-tops were detected... which means there was no chance of detecting a thermal couplet because it requires an overshooting-top detection. Starting from top left and moving clockwise the image above shows the standard IR window, visible, overshooting-top magnitude and NLDN lightning detections within the 4-panel AWIPS D2D display. While it is fairly clear in the IR window and visible imagery at 2345 UTC that there is an overshooting-top, as well as a nice wake signature in the visible, no overshooting-top was detected. At the time of this blog post the storm still has not had an overshooting-top detection.
It was hypothesized that initially the minimum IR brightness temperature requirement for the overshooting-top product was not reached early on. Then once the storm continued to grow, the spatial tests to identify isolated areas of relatively cold cloud tops associated with an overshooting-top failed because cold cloud top temperatures were too close together. These problems are likely due to the relatively poor spatial resolution of the GOES-13 imager and the product would be much improved if resolutions were similar to what will be available on ABI.
Daily debrief... 9 June
Today we met up with the EWP forecasters following the joint EFP/EWP daily map discussion and talked a little about what happened yesterday. Since there was some interesting weather from yesterday we had a good chance to capture some feedback from the forecasters regarding the experimental products...
Convective Initiation
- UWCI triggered CI occurring right as the appearance of a 50 dBZ echo on radar... it was so unstable that it didn't really have much of a chance.
- "I liked the cooling cloud tops product... gave you some awareness of what storms you should pay attention to during warning ops and which ones were strongest."
- "I found it useful this week and look forward to that era when we can get those increased temporal refresh rates. This would be very useful."
- In a more dynamic situation this could be very useful.
We asked the forecasters if they had a preference to see more or less signal (more vs less FAR)...
- "I like looking at them both side by side... you can come up with a poor man's ensemble for CI because we know the limitations of both."
- "There may actually be a benefit of some false hits because it may be telling you that the cap is strong... it can give you a sense of what's going to happen in the short-term."
Nearcast
- The precipitable water product did give a sense of where the convection would start over SW WI.
- There was a sharp theta-e gradient and that seemed to be where storms focused.
Overshooting-tops / Thermal Couplet
- Thermal couplet showed up over SW WI, but warning was already issued and radar was showing clear signals of severe weather.
- Interesting to see all the thermal couplets over northern Maine... might be a good case to examine.
- There were many overshooting tops over the WI area, however forecasters were too engulfed in the rapidly updating radar data.
Today EWP warning operations are going to stick around New England with the ongoing severe convection. We are hoping that some storms can back-build towards the DCLMA so that we can get some PGLM data, although this is conditional. We may also target over Oklahoma if things get going there, but that too is very conditional.
Convective Initiation
- UWCI triggered CI occurring right as the appearance of a 50 dBZ echo on radar... it was so unstable that it didn't really have much of a chance.
- "I liked the cooling cloud tops product... gave you some awareness of what storms you should pay attention to during warning ops and which ones were strongest."
- "I found it useful this week and look forward to that era when we can get those increased temporal refresh rates. This would be very useful."
- In a more dynamic situation this could be very useful.
We asked the forecasters if they had a preference to see more or less signal (more vs less FAR)...
- "I like looking at them both side by side... you can come up with a poor man's ensemble for CI because we know the limitations of both."
- "There may actually be a benefit of some false hits because it may be telling you that the cap is strong... it can give you a sense of what's going to happen in the short-term."
Nearcast
- The precipitable water product did give a sense of where the convection would start over SW WI.
- There was a sharp theta-e gradient and that seemed to be where storms focused.
Overshooting-tops / Thermal Couplet
- Thermal couplet showed up over SW WI, but warning was already issued and radar was showing clear signals of severe weather.
- Interesting to see all the thermal couplets over northern Maine... might be a good case to examine.
- There were many overshooting tops over the WI area, however forecasters were too engulfed in the rapidly updating radar data.
Today EWP warning operations are going to stick around New England with the ongoing severe convection. We are hoping that some storms can back-build towards the DCLMA so that we can get some PGLM data, although this is conditional. We may also target over Oklahoma if things get going there, but that too is very conditional.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
UW Overshooting Top Algorithm Hits Storm Prior to Springfield, MA Tornado
Yesterday, 1 June 2011, climatologically rare tornadoes hit New England. The University of Wisconsin Overshooting Top algorithm identified an overshooting top with a severe thunderstorm at 2002 UTC 1 June 2011, just west of Springfield, MA (right). The overshooting top magnitude is filled atop the GOES visible imagery. The overshooting top identification occurred 28 minutes ahead of the first tornado report in Westfield, MA at 2030 UTC (a western suburb of Springfield).
Friday, May 27, 2011
End of week debrief... 27 May
Today we had our end of week debrief for the EWP. We did have a fairly robust discussion yesterday regarding the 24 May event, so we tried to gather some additional information from the forecasters. We covered each of the products and how they performed within warning operations this week.
Convective Initiation
- (26 May event) CI did not so well over AL/TN... high FAR, low POD in morning... Forecaster theorized this may have something to do with the less dramatic temperature differences between the surface and clouds during the morning hours.
- CI did much better during rapid scan.
- The UAH version was much more agressive that the UW version.
- Having a probabilistic approach versus a yes/no would help.
- Forecaster used the UW CTC/CI product to issue a severe weather statement... ended up putting a warning on it afterwards.
- This could be important for not just severe weather... the CI products could be very useful for the onset of lightning as sort of a proxy for the growth of a certain dBZ threshold above say a -10 C level if it had faster updates.
- "I'm assuming that performance should improve pretty dramatically once you get the rapid updates with the next-generation satellites, but now I guess it would work best in a clean environment in the plains. I could also see the probabilities a good way to go."
- Maybe contouring SATCAST probabilities would be a good.
- "Based on what it's designed to do, I can see this working in a typical summer afternoon in Florida, not just over the plains."
- Could help identify waterspout candidates because they're harder to see on radar.
- For non-severe faster moving systems it may be useful in detecting regions of heavy rain.
- Would be a good idea to get west coast offices to look at these things since they rely heavily on satellite data because of a lack of surface observations.
Pseudo-GLM
- When we saw cell mergers there was a rapid increase in flash rate over a 5 minute time period and updraft speed from the 3D-VAR analysis.
- A lot of times we would have flash rate increases over the anvil areas downstream... it could help you focus on the new electrification of the storm as well as where new cells might develop or updrafts cores move... would give 10-15 minutes lead time before it showed on radar.
- 10-15 minutes lead time on the first CG.
- "There's a lot of potential use for these types of products... but there is definitely more room for improvement with additional research, as well as increased temporal or spatial resolution."
- It may be difficult to display the rate of change product, not everyone will be looking at the same storm, so having a gridded history would be really useful that you could click on and get an idea of how that storm has evolved.
- Having polarity information would be very useful.
- "Need more research on the forecasting applications of this data."
- Would be interesting to see the PGLM over mini-supercells as well as some winter cases looking at rainfall rates and updraft strengths.
- Ratio of IC-CG would be very useful... being able to query a cell or cluster for it's trend would be helpful.
- The classic MCCs, it would be interesting to see how that related to severe and heavy rain potential.
- Using the PGLM might be useful for a poor man's microwave information in distinguishing areas of convective and trailing stratiform.
- Would have a lot of utility in mountainous regions where flash flooding is a big issue, especially if there is no radar coverage.
- The sum product was not very useful, mainly because of the color scale... everything becomes white... Forecaster used it as a sort of storm total tool, much like precip.
Overshooting-top / Thermal Couplet
- (26 May event) One couplet was over some leading cells along the PN/MD line... the clouds behind that were masked by cirrus and may have limited the detection. When it did trigger, it well differentiated that cell from the rest of the scene.
Nearcast
- (26 May event) The theta-e and precipitable water differences really indicated the marginality of the storms in the foothills... where the maximum stuff intersected that is where we saw the most sustained convection and highest flash rates. It was definitely a good indicator of flash flooding over the area.
- "A lot of the time to increase my lead time in the morning, I like to take a look at PW and WV... so I found that this was a nice utility because it was indicative of finding areas of greatly deep instability, or moisture source regions."
- "One on storm on tuesday, there was strong theta-e gradient that the storm was moving into and that gave me confidence in that the storm would intensify."
- It's a simple way to identify areas of warm advection and instability... this is why the forecaster found it useful in warning operations.
NSSL-WRF Band Difference
- The band difference has a lot of potential... you can get a head start by looking at the trends in the data that help you anticipate what's going to happen.
Overall
- "I enjoyed seeing the combination of the satellite products interacting with the radar and lightning products... it's a great planning tool."
- Need to come up with some pre-made default procedures for the experimental products... it's tough for forecasters to come in cold and learn how to load all of the products and then go into forecasting operations. The forecasters especially applauded the creation of the "ultimate-CI" procedure from last week and that should be saved.
- Create articulate presentations that forecasters can view beforehand rather than having "powerpoint death" on Mondays... this will also maximize the time forecasters have to look at the products.
- Would also be useful to create very short WES cases to send out beforehand that the forecasters can go through before they arrive.
- Forecaster would like to see the derived sounder products within the HWT AWIPS next year.
Convective Initiation
- (26 May event) CI did not so well over AL/TN... high FAR, low POD in morning... Forecaster theorized this may have something to do with the less dramatic temperature differences between the surface and clouds during the morning hours.
- CI did much better during rapid scan.
- The UAH version was much more agressive that the UW version.
- Having a probabilistic approach versus a yes/no would help.
- Forecaster used the UW CTC/CI product to issue a severe weather statement... ended up putting a warning on it afterwards.
- This could be important for not just severe weather... the CI products could be very useful for the onset of lightning as sort of a proxy for the growth of a certain dBZ threshold above say a -10 C level if it had faster updates.
- "I'm assuming that performance should improve pretty dramatically once you get the rapid updates with the next-generation satellites, but now I guess it would work best in a clean environment in the plains. I could also see the probabilities a good way to go."
- Maybe contouring SATCAST probabilities would be a good.
- "Based on what it's designed to do, I can see this working in a typical summer afternoon in Florida, not just over the plains."
- Could help identify waterspout candidates because they're harder to see on radar.
- For non-severe faster moving systems it may be useful in detecting regions of heavy rain.
- Would be a good idea to get west coast offices to look at these things since they rely heavily on satellite data because of a lack of surface observations.
Pseudo-GLM
- When we saw cell mergers there was a rapid increase in flash rate over a 5 minute time period and updraft speed from the 3D-VAR analysis.
- A lot of times we would have flash rate increases over the anvil areas downstream... it could help you focus on the new electrification of the storm as well as where new cells might develop or updrafts cores move... would give 10-15 minutes lead time before it showed on radar.
- 10-15 minutes lead time on the first CG.
- "There's a lot of potential use for these types of products... but there is definitely more room for improvement with additional research, as well as increased temporal or spatial resolution."
- It may be difficult to display the rate of change product, not everyone will be looking at the same storm, so having a gridded history would be really useful that you could click on and get an idea of how that storm has evolved.
- Having polarity information would be very useful.
- "Need more research on the forecasting applications of this data."
- Would be interesting to see the PGLM over mini-supercells as well as some winter cases looking at rainfall rates and updraft strengths.
- Ratio of IC-CG would be very useful... being able to query a cell or cluster for it's trend would be helpful.
- The classic MCCs, it would be interesting to see how that related to severe and heavy rain potential.
- Using the PGLM might be useful for a poor man's microwave information in distinguishing areas of convective and trailing stratiform.
- Would have a lot of utility in mountainous regions where flash flooding is a big issue, especially if there is no radar coverage.
- The sum product was not very useful, mainly because of the color scale... everything becomes white... Forecaster used it as a sort of storm total tool, much like precip.
Overshooting-top / Thermal Couplet
- (26 May event) One couplet was over some leading cells along the PN/MD line... the clouds behind that were masked by cirrus and may have limited the detection. When it did trigger, it well differentiated that cell from the rest of the scene.
Nearcast
- (26 May event) The theta-e and precipitable water differences really indicated the marginality of the storms in the foothills... where the maximum stuff intersected that is where we saw the most sustained convection and highest flash rates. It was definitely a good indicator of flash flooding over the area.
- "A lot of the time to increase my lead time in the morning, I like to take a look at PW and WV... so I found that this was a nice utility because it was indicative of finding areas of greatly deep instability, or moisture source regions."
- "One on storm on tuesday, there was strong theta-e gradient that the storm was moving into and that gave me confidence in that the storm would intensify."
- It's a simple way to identify areas of warm advection and instability... this is why the forecaster found it useful in warning operations.
NSSL-WRF Band Difference
- The band difference has a lot of potential... you can get a head start by looking at the trends in the data that help you anticipate what's going to happen.
Overall
- "I enjoyed seeing the combination of the satellite products interacting with the radar and lightning products... it's a great planning tool."
- Need to come up with some pre-made default procedures for the experimental products... it's tough for forecasters to come in cold and learn how to load all of the products and then go into forecasting operations. The forecasters especially applauded the creation of the "ultimate-CI" procedure from last week and that should be saved.
- Create articulate presentations that forecasters can view beforehand rather than having "powerpoint death" on Mondays... this will also maximize the time forecasters have to look at the products.
- Would also be useful to create very short WES cases to send out beforehand that the forecasters can go through before they arrive.
- Forecaster would like to see the derived sounder products within the HWT AWIPS next year.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
EWP forecaster debrief... 26 May
This afternoon we had an extensive debrief session with the EWP forecasters regarding the tornado outbreak from this past Tuesday (24 May). We asked them in detail what they saw for each of the products, and these are the responses/comments we received for the GOES-R products...
Convective Initiation
- We were seeing 10-15 minute lead times from the UAH CI product along the dryline prior to any echoes above 35 dBZ on radar. The UWCI was much more conservative and missed a few instances of CI, but it had less false alarms and similar lead times when it did trigger for CI.
- UAH CI did show some signals after initiation behind the dryline, but nothing really continued to grow. However, forecaster mentioned how this would be very useful in warning operations to help increase situational awareness for future development when you may be focusing primarily on the first storms.
- Forecaster mentioned how he was watching the UAH CI this morning over the SE and it was giving negative lead times and UWCI was not flagging anything at all. However, he did want to emphasize that on Tuesday GOES-E was in rapid-scan operations and was not this morning, so that could be why the lead times were so poor.
Pseudo-GLM
- Very useful as a situational awareness tool during warning ops... Forecasters saw rapid increases in the instantaneous flash rates prior to increases in reflectivity and other products such as the 3D-VAR updraft strength and various MRMS products.
- Forecaster mentioned that it would be nice to have a line graph display for this to help identify jumps better. (Kristin and I did mention that we have heard that forecasters would not like this in the past since it would remove them from the D2D during warning ops... forecaster responded with that you can do this as a percentage change product within the storm interrogator software within AWIPS which could mitigate this.)
- Forecasters found that the track product (that we currently use as a proxy for a jump graphic) was not very useful in detecting 'jumps' mainly because of the resolution of the product... the rapid changes could not be seen because they would generally overlap on the same pixel.
- There were moments that some data outages occurred within the OKLMA network that caused some false instances of 'jumps' and lack of signal. It was theorized that the sensors were becoming attenuated in heavy rain and not transmitting data since they are daisy-chained. Also, one tower was hit by a tornado and caused a large break in the chain, so the OKLMA is down until further notice, possibly throughout the remainder of the experiment.
Overshooting-tops / Thermal Couplet
- Not many were seen, but those that were tended to be near the center of the upper low.
- Those that were seen did coincide with instances of increases in reflectivity aloft.
- Usefulness within warning ops very minimal because of lack of detections.
Convective Initiation
- We were seeing 10-15 minute lead times from the UAH CI product along the dryline prior to any echoes above 35 dBZ on radar. The UWCI was much more conservative and missed a few instances of CI, but it had less false alarms and similar lead times when it did trigger for CI.
- UAH CI did show some signals after initiation behind the dryline, but nothing really continued to grow. However, forecaster mentioned how this would be very useful in warning operations to help increase situational awareness for future development when you may be focusing primarily on the first storms.
- Forecaster mentioned how he was watching the UAH CI this morning over the SE and it was giving negative lead times and UWCI was not flagging anything at all. However, he did want to emphasize that on Tuesday GOES-E was in rapid-scan operations and was not this morning, so that could be why the lead times were so poor.
Pseudo-GLM
- Very useful as a situational awareness tool during warning ops... Forecasters saw rapid increases in the instantaneous flash rates prior to increases in reflectivity and other products such as the 3D-VAR updraft strength and various MRMS products.
- Forecaster mentioned that it would be nice to have a line graph display for this to help identify jumps better. (Kristin and I did mention that we have heard that forecasters would not like this in the past since it would remove them from the D2D during warning ops... forecaster responded with that you can do this as a percentage change product within the storm interrogator software within AWIPS which could mitigate this.)
- Forecasters found that the track product (that we currently use as a proxy for a jump graphic) was not very useful in detecting 'jumps' mainly because of the resolution of the product... the rapid changes could not be seen because they would generally overlap on the same pixel.
- There were moments that some data outages occurred within the OKLMA network that caused some false instances of 'jumps' and lack of signal. It was theorized that the sensors were becoming attenuated in heavy rain and not transmitting data since they are daisy-chained. Also, one tower was hit by a tornado and caused a large break in the chain, so the OKLMA is down until further notice, possibly throughout the remainder of the experiment.
Overshooting-tops / Thermal Couplet
- Not many were seen, but those that were tended to be near the center of the upper low.
- Those that were seen did coincide with instances of increases in reflectivity aloft.
- Usefulness within warning ops very minimal because of lack of detections.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Overshooting tops are being detected with the severe/tor warned storms over Indiana
The UWOTTC algorithm is consistently identifying overshooting tops over the state of Indiana. The above sequence of images (valid from 1902 UTC to 1945 UTC) shows numerous overshooting tops and their associated visible imagery counterparts. No thermal couplets have been detected with any severe storms as of yet, but this is not a surprise with how hard it is to detect the couplet features with the course resolution of GOES imagery. ABI is how long away??? See NWS all hazards image capture (top image) to see associated concurrent warnings.
Overshooting tops detected over central MO
Overshooting tops are being detected in central MO. The above image (valid 1855 UTC) and an earlier image shown below (valid 1832 UTC) show the OT detections (red spots) superimposed over their associated regions in the visible.
These OTs are associated with storms warranting tornado warnings over the same area. See warning image below. No thermal couplet signatures have been detected as of yet.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Thermal Couplet Detection with convection in south central KS
South Central Kansas is experiencing some severe weather right now - along with us - and where we're seeing reports of high winds and hail, we've detected a thermal couplet. Also, notice the overshooting tops associated with this convection.
Overshooting tops observed with initial storms along dryline
Overshooting tops are being detected with these initial storms firing along the dryline. No thermal couplets have yet to be detected.....
Monday, May 16, 2011
First WES case
Today EWP forecasters participated in our weekly training and are now engaged in a displaced real-time Weather Event Simulator (WES) case for further hands-on training. The event occurred on May 19th 2010 over Oklahoma. The reason we chose this case was because all of the experimental products were available, including PGLM since it was over the OKLMA. The case also gives us the unique opportunity to view storms from initiation all the way through dissipation in a controlled environment, with tornadoes and other severe weather in between. Each forecaster works on their own AWIPS machine to familiarize themselves with the products, how to load them, and also how to best display them. We ask the forecasters to create their own procedures (or preloaded AWIPS displays) and we save them all for further reference. We want to see how the forecasters use the experimental data in combination with other products that are available within AWIPS. This also gives the forecasters the chance to engage the PIs (and vice-versa) with any questions that they may have regarding the products' uses. The hope for this is that by the time we begin real-time operations over the coming days, the forecasters will be ready to use the experimental products confidently.
Friday, June 18, 2010
EWP weekly debrief
Today is the end of this year's Spring Experiment, and what a fitting end. Yesterday was our busiest day in the EWP over ND/MN/IA. As of the time of this entry there were 65 tornadoes reported over the area associated with the event. It was indeed a big day, and luckily there were no technical issues during the IOP. Unfortunately, due to the rapid developing nature of this event the GOES-R products were used only for a short time before it was essential to move into radar operations for warning purposes. The forecasters were inundated with issuing tornado warning pretty much in a consistent line from Canada down into IA. We were able to get some feedback and since this is the weekly debrief I was able to ask the forecasters in more detail, based on my observations this week as well as their survey responses. Here is a breakdown of what we discussed...
UWCI
I asked about the lead times from the surveys... 15-30 mins the general consensus?
"Hard to be sure because we were arriving at the HWT after convection was developing."
"Getting in there around noon would get more accurate results."
"The case event was already initiated when I got there."
"Struggling giving up screen space during severe weather" (from survey)... is there a display you think would help?
"Having an additional head would help. We were only provided with two screens so it changed our strategy."
"Would be useful for the mesoanalyst position at the WFO."
"4-panel devoted to those products works well."
I asked the forecasters if they were ok with more signals if that meant giving up some FAR...
"I would like earlier signals, like a probability signal... which part of my CWA is going to have the best chance... Some kind of signal before there's aggitated clouds would be helpful."
I asked the forecasters whether they preferred the CI or the cloud-top cooling...
"I used them both... kind of liked them both simultaneously."
"It was hard because it seemed it was 50/50 on detecting things so I lost a lot of confidence in using the product, but I did like the cloud-top cooling a little better because it seemed to do better."
I asked the forecasters if they preferred the accumulated of instantaneous fields...
"I stuck with the instantaneous for the most part, I don't think I even looked at the accumulated to be honest."
"I tended to look at the instantaneous."
Would you see a benefit in having a cloud-top cooling track?
"Yes... an overshooting top track would be very useful as well."
OTTC
Detections or magnitudes more useful?
"I looked at the detections only."
Did you see any correlations between OT detections and features developing on radar?
"Reflectivity was increasing above certain (height) levels at that time."
How often did the product correctly detect OTs that you could see on VIS/IR?
"Kinda 50/50."
"For a warning operator, I don't see this product adding much value to an on-going event..." (from survey) Why is that? Lack of detection, timeliness, applicability of product?
"Radar was more important... mix between timeliness and applicability."
"Get a good a western example case where you don't have radar."
"Maybe knock out some radars in a WES case."
PGLM
"It's an acquired taste, working with lightning data. I think it's a fundamental component in the decision making process trying to determine what's going on with the updraft... it's an interesting way of looking at it."
"With supercells I don't see any added benefit, unless it flared up right before an RFD developed... but I would have to see a lot of cases before I could determine that."
"Would be of a lot of value in low top events."
"Would be nice to see it in a non-supercell case event, like winter events."
"In terms of just lightning forecasting... I think the GLM stuff you were showing would be very useful in that area."
OVERALL / TRAINING
Overall feelings following the week...
"I'm 50/50... I'm not leaving here warm and fuzzy if that's what you're asking."
"When I came in I was very excited to have the convective initiation... I don't come out feeling as confident as I did and as excited as I did when I came in."
"The word convective initiation tool sounds awesome, maybe I went into it with high expectations as maybe seeing a tool with some probabilistic information."
How confident were you with the products following the training?
"The products were easy to understand so I was confident in using them."
What changes/additions would you like to see with the training?
Cases in the west re-iterated.
"The training itself was fine... it just seemed that it didn't perform as well as we would like to see."
I asked if the forecasters would like some sort of alert for the GOES-R products (UWCI, OTTC), so they would know when a detection was occurring, or if that would be more annoying than helpful...
"An initial alert would be nice... a continuous one would be overload."
"That would vary forecaster to forecaster."
Re-iterated the need for wind-based warning products.
"When I got really busy, I went back to the things I was used to using. I was just falling back on my normal routine."
"Would be nice on the first day to have a sort of hand-holding process to get used to the products."
"Maybe already have a base set of procedures so we don't have to spend 30 minutes setting everything up... especially on the first day."
Need cases where radar was out or nocturnal events over poor radar coverage.
UWCI
I asked about the lead times from the surveys... 15-30 mins the general consensus?
"Hard to be sure because we were arriving at the HWT after convection was developing."
"Getting in there around noon would get more accurate results."
"The case event was already initiated when I got there."
"Struggling giving up screen space during severe weather" (from survey)... is there a display you think would help?
"Having an additional head would help. We were only provided with two screens so it changed our strategy."
"Would be useful for the mesoanalyst position at the WFO."
"4-panel devoted to those products works well."
I asked the forecasters if they were ok with more signals if that meant giving up some FAR...
"I would like earlier signals, like a probability signal... which part of my CWA is going to have the best chance... Some kind of signal before there's aggitated clouds would be helpful."
I asked the forecasters whether they preferred the CI or the cloud-top cooling...
"I used them both... kind of liked them both simultaneously."
"It was hard because it seemed it was 50/50 on detecting things so I lost a lot of confidence in using the product, but I did like the cloud-top cooling a little better because it seemed to do better."
I asked the forecasters if they preferred the accumulated of instantaneous fields...
"I stuck with the instantaneous for the most part, I don't think I even looked at the accumulated to be honest."
"I tended to look at the instantaneous."
Would you see a benefit in having a cloud-top cooling track?
"Yes... an overshooting top track would be very useful as well."
OTTC
Detections or magnitudes more useful?
"I looked at the detections only."
Did you see any correlations between OT detections and features developing on radar?
"Reflectivity was increasing above certain (height) levels at that time."
How often did the product correctly detect OTs that you could see on VIS/IR?
"Kinda 50/50."
"For a warning operator, I don't see this product adding much value to an on-going event..." (from survey) Why is that? Lack of detection, timeliness, applicability of product?
"Radar was more important... mix between timeliness and applicability."
"Get a good a western example case where you don't have radar."
"Maybe knock out some radars in a WES case."
PGLM
"It's an acquired taste, working with lightning data. I think it's a fundamental component in the decision making process trying to determine what's going on with the updraft... it's an interesting way of looking at it."
"With supercells I don't see any added benefit, unless it flared up right before an RFD developed... but I would have to see a lot of cases before I could determine that."
"Would be of a lot of value in low top events."
"Would be nice to see it in a non-supercell case event, like winter events."
"In terms of just lightning forecasting... I think the GLM stuff you were showing would be very useful in that area."
OVERALL / TRAINING
Overall feelings following the week...
"I'm 50/50... I'm not leaving here warm and fuzzy if that's what you're asking."
"When I came in I was very excited to have the convective initiation... I don't come out feeling as confident as I did and as excited as I did when I came in."
"The word convective initiation tool sounds awesome, maybe I went into it with high expectations as maybe seeing a tool with some probabilistic information."
How confident were you with the products following the training?
"The products were easy to understand so I was confident in using them."
What changes/additions would you like to see with the training?
Cases in the west re-iterated.
"The training itself was fine... it just seemed that it didn't perform as well as we would like to see."
I asked if the forecasters would like some sort of alert for the GOES-R products (UWCI, OTTC), so they would know when a detection was occurring, or if that would be more annoying than helpful...
"An initial alert would be nice... a continuous one would be overload."
"That would vary forecaster to forecaster."
Re-iterated the need for wind-based warning products.
"When I got really busy, I went back to the things I was used to using. I was just falling back on my normal routine."
"Would be nice on the first day to have a sort of hand-holding process to get used to the products."
"Maybe already have a base set of procedures so we don't have to spend 30 minutes setting everything up... especially on the first day."
Need cases where radar was out or nocturnal events over poor radar coverage.
Review of yesterday's event... an EWP perspective
24-hour UWCI nowcasts (top left), overshooting top (top right) and thermal couplet detections (bottom left), and SPC storm reports (bottom right) for 17 June 2010.
Today we discussed yesterday's event over ND/MN/IA and I wanted to mention a few things we discussed with the forecasters regarding the performance of the UWCI and OTTC products leading up to and during the event. We showed the forecasters the 24-hour accumulations of UWCI, cloud-top cooling, overshooting top and thermal couplet detections with regards to severe reports from the SPC (see images above), as well as their own experiences. Forecasters did notice that cloud-top cooling was occurring on southern edge, but it was already ongoing on radar. The first UWCI signals were seen at 1855 UTC with the convection that was developing over ND and MN. The first overshooting top was detected at 1915 UTC over northern MN. These occurred just prior to beginning operations in the HWT, so it is hard to determine the CI lead times for this event given that we did not see the first detections of CI. I reiterated that we are hoping to expand the experiment in the future years by having overlapping shifts that would provide additional time to evaluate GOES-R Proving Ground products in a nowcasting perspective, which is what they are meant for originally. Forecasters did not see any thermal couplets in real-time, but did notice a few overshooting tops, especially when they began. However, they mentioned that the storms seem more low topped in nature and this may have hindered the products ability to detect these features. They were honest with me in saying that as soon as they moved into warning operations they turned the GOES-R stuff off because they did not feel it provided them with additional warning information and needed the window space for their traditional radar products.
Jordan Gerth did show the forecasters an AVHRR image that demonstrated similar to what GOES-R would see regarding overshooting tops and thermal couplets and noted that the detection efficiency would be much better. The forecasters were impressed with this and agreed that the products would perform much better in the future and appreciated us showing them the products now. The forecasters also did note that in the case of a line forming upstream from main convective area, convective initiation being detected in the line behind would help prevent getting tunnel vision and increase their situational awareness.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
EWP daily briefing... 6/17/2010
At the beginning of the briefing we discussed yesterday real-time IOP event over the Sterling, VA WFO CWA. We had the ability to use the PGLM output from the DCLMA for this event. Most of the warnings issued were for severe wind threats and were fairly marginal. One of the forecasters mentioned that he focused on the PGLM products because of the marginal nature of the event to try and pick out regions of greater importance since the radar and MRMS products were showing similar features for most of the convection around the area. However, due to the marginal nature of the event, no strong conclusions were drawn as to the usefulness of a lot of the experimental data. One of the forecasters brought up the idea of creating regional versions of some of the products to try and draw more information from them. This may eventually be useful for products like the CI and cloud-top cooling products since we have seen some regional dependence on the product performance (ie - diagnostic over SE US)
We also discussed the performance of the UWCI over the same area. The forecasters reiterated the lack of detection over WV/VA border from yesterday's blog post. We believe that this was due to some microphysical issues being presented in the cloud typing product that were masking out the CI signals. We mentioned that we had wished we had moved to SD sooner, which is where we ended up for the remainder of yesterday's IOP. There were a lot of signals over that area (see image above), but we were unsure as to the timing of them since we were not watching in real time. This would be a good case to look at in the future. Also, notice the lack of signals over the Sterling and State College WFO areas where we focused at the beginning of the day. Jordan Gerth discussed with the forecasters about the idea of providing a cloud-top cooling rate 'image' with no filtering, which would allow for the forecasters to see all areas of cooling/warming regardless of cloud motion or other effects that are currently removed. This would allow the forecasters decide for themselves what are false signals and may be particularly useful for determining the life cycle of MCS's and weakening supercell storms.
24-hour overshooting top (left) and thermal couplet (right) detections for 16 June 2010.
We examined the overshooting top and thermal couplet detections (see images above) and saw that both the overshooting top and thermal couplet detections did correlate well to the location of the severe weather in this case, especially over SD. However, when these were seen during the real-time IOP, it was already obvious that severe weather was occurring based on reports being received and the standard radar data. The overshooting top detections that continue further east, as well as the blob of CI nowcasts east of the tornadic storm were questioned by the forecasters since they occurred after the IOP ended and they were not sure how legitimate they were. We did look back very quickly to see what happened and it seemed as though a MCS developed later on associated with many additional warnings and it would have been nice to see the performance of the products in that instance. Again, this would be a good case to look at in the future. We will attempt to archive the data, but it may be difficult since we do not yet have dedicated disk space to do so.
The plan for today is to operate over MN and IA. This is our last chance for real-time IOPs and it looks like it should be a good one for GOES-R with the lack of cirrus in the area... assuming we get started soon enough.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
EWP real-time IOP CI feedback
Today's IOP focused over the DCLMA domain to get some real-time PGLM experience. The forecasters broke up into two groups and localized over the Sterling, VA and State College, PA WFOs. The Sterling WFO group have been issuing severe thunderstorm warnings based on PGLM and MRMS products over the past couple hours. I was sitting with the State College WFO group as they were focusing on the UWCI products, watching for convective initiation over their area. One of the forecasters had multiple GOES-R Proving Ground products (UWCI, cloud-top cooling, overshooting top, and thermal couplet) into a 4-panel display and mentioned to me that this display strategy would be extremely useful as a situational awareness tool for monitoring satellite convective information.
GOES-13 IR imagery for 1832 (top left), 1845 (top right), 1902 (bottom left) and 1915 UTC (bottom right) on 16 June 2010. Area of interest noted by green circle.
We noticed an area of obvious convective development that was not detected by the UWCI product on the WV/VA border at 1915 UTC and the forecaster asked me to explain why no CI nowcast was made. Looking at the IR, you could see significant cooling occurring from 1832 and 1915 UTC (see above), but still no signals were seen. Jordan Gerth and I looked at the cloud typing output to see if we could draw any conclusions from that to determine what was going on (see below). Most of the area was covered by cloud types identified as 'water' or 'mixed phase'. However, there were a few spots of 'cirrus' classification over WV nearby where the CI nowcast should have been made. It seemed on visible and IR satellite that this may not have been the case, but this is hard to determine for sure. Jordan suggested that because there were these spots nearby that they may have been contaminating the spatial tests required by the algorithm to flag an area as filtered cloud-top cooling, and thus not allow for a CI nowcast to be made. This may be a fluke case where nothing can be done, but it may be useful to examine this in more detail to see if something can be improved.
UW-CIMSS Cloud typing product for 1832 (top left), 1845 (top right), 1902 (bottom left), and 1915 UTC (bottom right) on 16 June 2010. Area of interest noted by red circle.
GOES-13 IR imagery for 1832 (top left), 1845 (top right), 1902 (bottom left) and 1915 UTC (bottom right) on 16 June 2010. Area of interest noted by green circle.
We noticed an area of obvious convective development that was not detected by the UWCI product on the WV/VA border at 1915 UTC and the forecaster asked me to explain why no CI nowcast was made. Looking at the IR, you could see significant cooling occurring from 1832 and 1915 UTC (see above), but still no signals were seen. Jordan Gerth and I looked at the cloud typing output to see if we could draw any conclusions from that to determine what was going on (see below). Most of the area was covered by cloud types identified as 'water' or 'mixed phase'. However, there were a few spots of 'cirrus' classification over WV nearby where the CI nowcast should have been made. It seemed on visible and IR satellite that this may not have been the case, but this is hard to determine for sure. Jordan suggested that because there were these spots nearby that they may have been contaminating the spatial tests required by the algorithm to flag an area as filtered cloud-top cooling, and thus not allow for a CI nowcast to be made. This may be a fluke case where nothing can be done, but it may be useful to examine this in more detail to see if something can be improved.
UW-CIMSS Cloud typing product for 1832 (top left), 1845 (top right), 1902 (bottom left), and 1915 UTC (bottom right) on 16 June 2010. Area of interest noted by red circle.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
EWP daily briefing... 6/15/2010
During today's EWP briefing we discussed the previous day's flooding event over OKC from a PGLM perspective. Unfortunately the event unfolded in the morning hours when the EWP was not operating, so we were unable to view the data in real-time. Kristin Kuhlman presented the archived data and discussed with the forecasters what the PGLM showed during the event. She also overlaid the OKLMA flash contours to show how the PGLM relates to what was actually occurring (see above), which really helped the forecasters get a grasp over what the PGLM was showing them. They noted that the lightning seemed to be mainly focused with convection developing on the backside of the system and that this would help radar operators focus on which areas had continued development and represented an increased threat for flooding and severe weather in the future.
24-hour UWCI detections (top left), overshooting top detections (top right), thermal couplet dtetections (bottom left), and SPC severe reports (bottom right) from 14 June 2010
Jordan Gerth showed the UWCI and OTTC products over the past 24 hours in comparison to the severe reports from the same time period (see above). He pointed out the the UWCI had a lot of hits over the southeast with the diurnal convection that was not necessarily severe. He was unsure about how the UWCI performed with the the widespread swatch of wind reports through NC, but it is highly possible that the mass of UWCI signals in WV may be in initiation point for this convection... but we would need to do an in depth analysis of the event to determine this. Also, the numerous severe reports over southern IN seemed to have no UWCI detections associated with them. We suspected this was due to the presence of cirrus over the area. Jordan also noted the high density of overshooting top detections over OK with very few severe reports. He made sure to mention that the overshooting top detections are not necessarily associated with severe weather at the surface, as they are more of an indication of turbulence and lightning threats. There were only a few thermal couplet detections, which are highly linked to severe weather. The three located over TX seemed to be the best examples for this day. Jordan also did a quick introduction to the UW-CIMSS Nearcasting product for the EWP forecasters and showed a couple case examples in addition to the output for today to show areas of convective destabilizations associated with differential theta-e and precipitable water fields. Unfortunately we were unable to establish data flow for this product in time for this Spring Experiment, but we do plan on having it for future experiments.
The plan for the day is to once again start early and operate over the SPC moderate risk area in southern IL/IN to examine the GOES-R Proving Ground products prior to warning operations. With a relatively cirrus free sky, it should be a good event to demonstrate the UWCI. However, some storms are currently ongoing and are possibly severe, so we are hoping for some new development further south and west of the ongoing convection. The WFO's localized for the start of the IOP will be Indianapolis, IN and Louisville, KY.
Friday, June 11, 2010
EWP weekly debrief
Here is the breakdown from this week's EWP weekly debrief...
UWCI
This week was plagued by cirrus... can't remove it so we need to communicate well the limitations of the product. Forecasters were mentioning that they were constantly referring to the cloud type web page and suggested providing this into AWIPS. Will severely limit the applicability.
"If it's a good day to use it, the forecasters will use it... Most useful prior to development... right now things have to start developing before we issue products, this gives us some additional lead time."
Forecasters mentioned that the product would be useful in nighttime operations... possibly get more lead time... At night, stuff fires so quickly... perhaps providing a CI alarm in AWIPS would help situational awareness. Forecasters suggested providing a nighttime WES case for training. Lee is going to distribute web site and explain how to use it so they can look at it anytime.
Expressed interest in CI accumulated to follow CI signals through time in case they missed a scan.
Limitations in sensor scan time noted.
Forecasters mentioned the interest in providing more signals. they saw a lot of cases where CI was obvious but was not captured by the product. I asked if they were ok with the idea to sacrifice FAR for more detections...
"More times I expected to see something and didn't happened more often than not... not useful if things aren't showing where I expected to see it."
"Could you build different thresholds? Could you build one that was not so strict?"
"What about probabilistic detection? Then you can set your own threshold."
"Concerned about FAR getting too high because then it'll stop getting used."
There was a request for using additional bands... "You guys know the best bands to use... If you can get more information from other bands, go for it"
I asked if they saw the UWCI product being a precursor to lightning...
"Did not specifically check."
"I was more correlating the 35-40 dBZ"
During an event with a strong cap, the UWCI/CTC showed signals but no development occurred (or continued to occur)... perhaps provide a case of this in training.
From yesterday's IOP over Boulder, CO area... cell showed CI at 22:30 UTC... at 22:58 UTC a 30-40 dBZ occurred... showing 28 min lead time. Similar results were seen throughout the week.
A forecaster asked is testing on simulated satellite imagery planned? Yes, but currently the computation time is expensive so 5 min data would be rough.
Forecaster requested that it would be nice if the UWCI automatically loaded with satellite imagery in AWIPS.
OTTC
Forecasters mentioned they don't know what overshooting tops tell you... need more examples of this in training/literature.
Losing confidence by high threshold when you can see in visible... maybe a training issue... when you see a detection maybe it's more serious than a typical OT.
Combining with storm top divergence... "I think there's a lot of potential there."
Forecasters requested thermal couplet/overshoot detections in one product... hard to watch two different products... takes up a window in their D2D... "The more we can combine the better."
PGLM
Need to understand the importance of lightning "jumps"... show what would be significant... "What type of airmass dependence would we see with that?"
Need a rate of change product. Also, need to explain downward jumps... "What do we think is going on with the storm?"
Polarity information... needs to be mentioned that the ground based can be used in comparison.
Smoothing reducing peaks and faking a high res product.
Max-value track product would be useful... similar to rotation/hail track MRMS products.
"I think one of the problems with using lightning data in the WFO (currently) is that forecasters realize that it's (NLDN) such a small percentage of what's really going on."
"My guess is when the product becomes available it'll become a mainstream product that people are looking at all the time."
"Not necessarily going to be the main warning product, but it will be a good confirmation tool. If I had paid more attention and been more aware I could have issued my tornado warning one scan earlier." (24 May 2008 case event)
I asked if they noticed any lead time on CG from the PGLM... ~10 mins in general... canned case and real-time.
OVERALL/TRAINING
Training experience...
"Getting some simulations where the product does work out to field (WES cases) is important... hard to trust people with a Powerpoint. But be careful of putting out WES cases... 20 min articulate cases are fabulous... too long and we don't have time."
"Thankful for the canned case"
Asked forecasters how confident in the products they were after the training...
"With the UWCI I felt really good about, the other one (OTTC) was good too, I just probably don't experience it as much in operations"
"If you guys see something during real-time operations, don't hesitate to tell us something was there... don't hesitate to be the hands on instructor for the first couple days."
I asked what additional information they would like to see in the training...
"When you see a detection, provide a 'here's what it means' quicklook that we can refer to in operations."
Examples where it didn't work (cirrus, cap), and why are needed.
GOES-R products seem to be more useful before storm initiation.
Forecasters re-iterated need for object tracking and end to end multi-sensor tool... combine lightning, radar and satellite.
MRMS and GOES-R products are sparse grids... what could be done to improve your awareness that things are happening?
"Message or prompt to tell you when things are occurring."
"Some hesitation in alarms though... start to drown them out, especially when too many things trying to alert you."
"Number in lop left corner showing number of detections, like NLDN products, would be very useful."
"If there are a lot of false detections this would be hard."
Forecasters mentioned that you shouldn't be too worried about shipping the color curve information... forecasters are going to change it anyways.
"Glad you guys are here... good to have the interactions that we have and learn how these things work."
UWCI
This week was plagued by cirrus... can't remove it so we need to communicate well the limitations of the product. Forecasters were mentioning that they were constantly referring to the cloud type web page and suggested providing this into AWIPS. Will severely limit the applicability.
"If it's a good day to use it, the forecasters will use it... Most useful prior to development... right now things have to start developing before we issue products, this gives us some additional lead time."
Forecasters mentioned that the product would be useful in nighttime operations... possibly get more lead time... At night, stuff fires so quickly... perhaps providing a CI alarm in AWIPS would help situational awareness. Forecasters suggested providing a nighttime WES case for training. Lee is going to distribute web site and explain how to use it so they can look at it anytime.
Expressed interest in CI accumulated to follow CI signals through time in case they missed a scan.
Limitations in sensor scan time noted.
Forecasters mentioned the interest in providing more signals. they saw a lot of cases where CI was obvious but was not captured by the product. I asked if they were ok with the idea to sacrifice FAR for more detections...
"More times I expected to see something and didn't happened more often than not... not useful if things aren't showing where I expected to see it."
"Could you build different thresholds? Could you build one that was not so strict?"
"What about probabilistic detection? Then you can set your own threshold."
"Concerned about FAR getting too high because then it'll stop getting used."
There was a request for using additional bands... "You guys know the best bands to use... If you can get more information from other bands, go for it"
I asked if they saw the UWCI product being a precursor to lightning...
"Did not specifically check."
"I was more correlating the 35-40 dBZ"
During an event with a strong cap, the UWCI/CTC showed signals but no development occurred (or continued to occur)... perhaps provide a case of this in training.
From yesterday's IOP over Boulder, CO area... cell showed CI at 22:30 UTC... at 22:58 UTC a 30-40 dBZ occurred... showing 28 min lead time. Similar results were seen throughout the week.
A forecaster asked is testing on simulated satellite imagery planned? Yes, but currently the computation time is expensive so 5 min data would be rough.
Forecaster requested that it would be nice if the UWCI automatically loaded with satellite imagery in AWIPS.
OTTC
Forecasters mentioned they don't know what overshooting tops tell you... need more examples of this in training/literature.
Losing confidence by high threshold when you can see in visible... maybe a training issue... when you see a detection maybe it's more serious than a typical OT.
Combining with storm top divergence... "I think there's a lot of potential there."
Forecasters requested thermal couplet/overshoot detections in one product... hard to watch two different products... takes up a window in their D2D... "The more we can combine the better."
PGLM
Need to understand the importance of lightning "jumps"... show what would be significant... "What type of airmass dependence would we see with that?"
Need a rate of change product. Also, need to explain downward jumps... "What do we think is going on with the storm?"
Polarity information... needs to be mentioned that the ground based can be used in comparison.
Smoothing reducing peaks and faking a high res product.
Max-value track product would be useful... similar to rotation/hail track MRMS products.
"I think one of the problems with using lightning data in the WFO (currently) is that forecasters realize that it's (NLDN) such a small percentage of what's really going on."
"My guess is when the product becomes available it'll become a mainstream product that people are looking at all the time."
"Not necessarily going to be the main warning product, but it will be a good confirmation tool. If I had paid more attention and been more aware I could have issued my tornado warning one scan earlier." (24 May 2008 case event)
I asked if they noticed any lead time on CG from the PGLM... ~10 mins in general... canned case and real-time.
OVERALL/TRAINING
Training experience...
"Getting some simulations where the product does work out to field (WES cases) is important... hard to trust people with a Powerpoint. But be careful of putting out WES cases... 20 min articulate cases are fabulous... too long and we don't have time."
"Thankful for the canned case"
Asked forecasters how confident in the products they were after the training...
"With the UWCI I felt really good about, the other one (OTTC) was good too, I just probably don't experience it as much in operations"
"If you guys see something during real-time operations, don't hesitate to tell us something was there... don't hesitate to be the hands on instructor for the first couple days."
I asked what additional information they would like to see in the training...
"When you see a detection, provide a 'here's what it means' quicklook that we can refer to in operations."
Examples where it didn't work (cirrus, cap), and why are needed.
GOES-R products seem to be more useful before storm initiation.
Forecasters re-iterated need for object tracking and end to end multi-sensor tool... combine lightning, radar and satellite.
MRMS and GOES-R products are sparse grids... what could be done to improve your awareness that things are happening?
"Message or prompt to tell you when things are occurring."
"Some hesitation in alarms though... start to drown them out, especially when too many things trying to alert you."
"Number in lop left corner showing number of detections, like NLDN products, would be very useful."
"If there are a lot of false detections this would be hard."
Forecasters mentioned that you shouldn't be too worried about shipping the color curve information... forecasters are going to change it anyways.
"Glad you guys are here... good to have the interactions that we have and learn how these things work."
Thursday, June 10, 2010
EWP daily briefing... 6/10/2010
SPC has issued a moderate risk over the area formerly known as "Big-12 Country" (ie - Nebraska/Colorado border). The plan will be similar to what we have done for previous IOPs with the first half of the day spent monitoring the GOES-R products for convective initiation and the second half of the day monitoring the MRMS products during warning operations.
During the briefing, Lee discussed the previous day. Unfortunately the area we targeted yesterday did not have much happen in terms of UWCI due to a widespread area of cirrus. We were able to see some overshooting top detections over northern Alabama, but they were not really associated with a lot of severe weather. There was only one thermal couplet detection but was not used by the forecasters during warning operations because they did not notice it. Most of yesterday's IOP was focused on the PGLM product, which Geoffrey Stano will post on in more detail in an upcoming post, and we got some very good feedback from that, as well as in the case example that Geoffrey has already discussed. Lee did show an area over NM/CO where the UWCI was showing 30-35 minute lead times on the first occurrence of a 35 dBZ echo on composite radar.
One important thing I noted during the discussion is that the forecasters need some sort of tool to help them forecast, and/or diagnose areas of severe winds. Right now they mentioned they have nothing that really helps them and it is really hard for them to warn for severe wind. Something to keep in mind for possible applications of GOES-R data, but I know this would be a difficult task. Nonetheless, it is an area where a obvious void in forecaster tools are present.
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