Our DSS event in Pueblo, Colorado today was at the Chilé and Frijoles Festival in downtown Pueblo (former HWT liaison Bill Line stated that the festival is very tasty). A severe storm approached slowly from the south, with LightningCast helping the DSS forecaster on the Pueblo desk provide simulated updates to event managers. In Figure 1, the "B" point in the middle of the images is the approximate location of the festival.
Figure 1: LightningCast probabilities, GOES-16 day-cloud phase distinction RGB, and GOES-16 GLM flash-extent density.
Figure 2 shows the trend of LightningCast probabilities (for 1-min and 5-min sectors; top) and the trend in lightning observations for GLM and ENI (blue and orange; bottom). Forecasters have noted the utility of this capability in general, and one forecaster has noted that this capability could be a "game changer" when deployed on site to DSS events. For this advecting storm, a LightningCast probability of 50% provided about 50 minutes of lead time to the first flash within 5 miles of the festival site.
We also had a good discussion about evaluating the lead time differences to the first nearby flash among initiating and advecting storms at given locations.
