Final EWP weekly debrief

Today marks our final day in the Spring Experiment!  We spent a couple hours prior to the weekly "Tales from the Testbed" webinar debriefing our final group of forecasters on their experience this week with the various products and the experiment overall.

SATCAST / UW Cloud-top Cooling
- "I'm going to go back to work and be asking my ITO during operations, 'where's the CTC product?'"
- "I thought both the CI products were very useful... the CI product (SATCAST), I like the idea of having the probabilities... I not sure that you really need the low ones (maybe under 50)... you weren't seeing CI with those values...  There were some times where we would see some organization with some areas with low values and I started to think that something would happen, but nothing did... so I wonder if it might be misleading."
- "I think there is definitely benefit in forecasters having access to both of the CI products... I found myself comparing the two to each other a lot and gaining my confidence that something was really going on."
- "I wasn't sure how much usefulness there was over elevation (for both products)... which could be expected... you really need to be aware of your environment."
- "If you looked at the day where there were the Dallas supercells, I found it really useful... I actually warned on the CTC and it worked out well... It preceed the 60 dBZ and 1" mesh by about 20-30 minutes."
- "I tended almost to gravitate more to the CTC... the CI product had more false alarms, maybe not with the highest probabilities, but there were a lot of 70s that did nothing."
- "There was a lot of noise with the lower values in the CI product... I can easily go in and turn of anything below 50 in the color curve if I wanted to."
- "I had several cases where I would get a 70-75 on the CI and then there would be nothing on the CTC, and then 15 minutes later there would be something on the CTC and that usually resulted with 50 minutes or so of lead time."
- "I did find some blue areas with lower values... I'd rather see that than have nothing there."
- "A yes/no value is not the answer for something like this."
- "It would be nice to see a trend of if your CI forecast is increasing... some space and time averaging might be helpful."
- "I can see these being even more useful in RSO."
- "I was really pleased how the CTC product picked up on the bigger storms...  I'd be curious to know how this would do over some of the more mediocre stuff."
- "The lead times with repect to the cooling rates seemed to correlate well to what we saw in the training material... there was one where we had 70 minutes lead time on severe."
- "We had one cell that had about an hour and a half lead time of severe from the CTC."
- "We had one cell that already had ongoing hail and then we saw an additional spike of CTC and there was additional development that eventually lead to a tornado... that was interesting to see."
- "Yesterday in Hastings we had a -34 C / 15 mins signal early on... there were some weaker storms ongoing at that time and it seemed like the stronger convection formed a little south of there afterwards... it definitely clued us in that something was going on."
- "An hour by hour verification over a one or several month period would be nice to see how these signals relate to things like trying to erode the cap."

Nearcast
- "The problem I had with this was the expansion of the 'black holes'... it came to be that after about 3 hours it became limited in usefulness... if there was some way to fill that in, I think it would be more useful."
- "It kept saying that there was an area of unstable airmass where you knew clearly the front had already moved through... forecasters need to keep an eye on the total picture."
- "I found it to be useful when I was in the HUN area... the instability kept showing up to the SE and I had some confidence that the storms would continue to maintain as they moved through the area."
- "On the boundary of the GOES-E and GOES-W domains, it would be nice to have some continuity from one product to the other." - It is anticipated that UW-CIMSS will do this in the future.
- "I wanted to see how the model based CAPE analysis compared to the Nearcast CAPE and they matched (at least in pattern) pretty well... I usually have to go to the web to get those analyses, so it would be nice to have something to compare to that.  Having a forecast component to it as well was nice to have."
- "I can get used to the colors as long as there is a sharp enough contrast and they are consistent."
- "That day we had those storms in N. Mexico... that mid-level theta-e showed a nice moisture axis where storms ended up developing."

Simulated Satellite
- "I wish I could have looked at it more... a lot of the days we already had stuff going on when we walked in."
- "I think it would be helpful in a forecast office to see what the NSSL-WRF did in an easily interpretable forecast.  It was pretty accurate on many occasions out to 30 hours.  In this week it was very good on the initialization of the convection."
- "If you're trying to do short term forecasting it might not be so great, but when you're trying to get the bigger picture it's really great."
- "Have you guys thought about any sort of average error for the location of the storms?" - No, but this might be possible with the push to include this in ensembles... like with the CAPS ensemble simulated satellite imagery we are demonstrating in the EFP.
- "Some sort of probabilistic field might be useful for cold cloud tops are would be useful." - Again, this might be possible with an ensemble method.
- "I would use this as a quick first look."
- "It would be nice to have a 12 UTC run in there."

RGB Airmass
- "The differences are very subtle... it might be a little tricky to use in a forecast office... it would take some using to get used to."
- "It would definitely be useful in a synoptic sense."

PGLM
- "The first day in HUN's area... the total lightning was useful... we started to see an increase in total lightning and we issued a warning... then we started to see the radar returns begin to get deeper and stronger."

Overall / Training
- "It was really untimely that we would lose satellite for 30 minutes to an hour at 1800 and 2100 UTC." - Partially a full-disk scan issue and a known AWIPS II issue not being able to match GOES-E and GOES-W timestamps properly.
- "This was my third time here and I thought that this year's orientation was really good... well organized... it let us get to work right as we got here."
- "The WES case was pretty slick, I wish I had another one... I loaded it on my laptop and it was very effective."
- "I would almost like to see an abbreviated DRT-type case in addition to the job sheet method."
- "Setting up the procedures on the first day was a little difficult... when I found the ones that were created before, those are the ones I started using the rest of the week."
- "It was good having an experienced person who's been here before there to help you through what you guys wanted from our evaluations."

GID Update…Looks Like Storms May be Starting to Go Up

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

CTC did a good job forecasting 45 minutes out the development of the Polk county cluster that really got going as it crossed over into Butler county in Omaha’s area.

The 2030Z pass of the CTC and CI products are starting to hint at convective initiation across our area in the next hour or so.  Here is a look at the regional radar…

FSD – should we be shifting to OAX (CTC)?

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

Cloud cover seems to be inhibiting convective initiation in FSD CWA. Looking toward OAX, CTC signature showing up over eastern Nebraska. CTC showing cooling rate of -24 degrees C/15 mins over Dodge/Cuming Counties in Nebraska. It also shows -19 degrees over Polk County NE at 2015z.

Reflectivity is increasing in the storms in these counties.

We have shifted to OAX and issued warning for Butler County. This storm was associated with the previous CTC signature over Polk County in Nebraska.

Third MAF Warning…Jeff Davis County

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

Another strengthening storm developing over the northern slopes of the Davis Mts.  The UAH-CI gave us a 75 several minutes ahead of the development…

MAF Second Warning for Persidio County

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

Issued our second EXPERIMENTAL Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Persidio County.  Storm is showing strongest Cloud Top Cooling rates observed at 2202 UTC today around -37C/15 min.  This cell is over northern Mexico way out towards the edge of the KMAF NexRad coverage…with 40 dBZ echo at 35 thousand feet.  We will see how this one pans out as it get closer in on the radar coverage as it moves towards the Davis Mts. Here is the corresponding CI imagery 15 minutes earlier at 2145 UTC…

Update… KMAF Echo Top shows storm west of the Rio Grande has increased to 54 kft at 2220z. This gave around 30 minute lead time before increase.

Update… storm over Mexico northwest of Candelaria intensified to over 64 dBZ at 2311z. The strong CTC signature gave a lead time of a little over an hour for this intense storm.

MAF – Waiting for Storm Initiation near Alpine

Forecaster comments from the EWP blog...

Forecast models are pointing toward the Davis Mountains region for convective initiation. The latest OUN WRF is again early with convective initiation east of Fort Davis around 20z.

HRRR model shows the same location but just a bit later, between 20 and 21z.

Visible satellite image at 1930z shows quite a bit of mid-level clouds but there was an isolated higher strength of signal for convective initiation south of Alpine.  Higher moisture was located just east of the Davis Mountains with lower to mid 60s dewpoint temperatures west of the Pecos River.

ABQ North: OUN WRF Initialzing Well Today

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

First echoes on the KABX radar is matching up well with the 18z run of the OUN WRF. Timing and placement are very close to reality.

The KABX radar at the same time:

CI and Cloud top cooling products are showing strong returns on the elevation. We’ll see if they pan out.

Unfortunately, if the OUN WRF is correct, only a few storms will develop and move east this afternoon/evening.

EWP daily debrief 6/13

We had a good severe weather day yesterday and was able to capture some feedback today on how things went...

SATCAST / UW Cloud-top Cooling
- "The stuff over the mountains had a lot of false alarms in both CI products."
- "We were seeing the occurrence of 35 DBZ at mid levels about 30 minutes after we saw cooling rates of -20 C / 15 mins or higher."
- "The survey questions for the CTC were implying that I should be using it for warning decision making, but it became problematic once storms became mature and there was increased cloud cover."
- "If the CTC got over -20 C / 15 mins anywhere other than over the terrain yesterday, there were really no false alarms...  I did do one warning solely on the CTC, but it was on the terrain and never really did anything."
- "There was one supercell going to the Clovis radar late in the day yesterday, at one point the CTC peaked a bit at -16 C / 15 min... within 30 minutes that thing had MESH of 3.5"... then it turned right and had some big hail stones... that was a very interesting case where it identified some additional strengthening of storms."
- "We were halfway through making the polygon and we saw a new CTC signal and that pretty much made us continue to issue the warning."
- "You have to weigh the environment too."
- "That product (CTC) can certainly help raise your awareness of strengthening storms."
- "I noticed that there was no CTC signals and then there was one where it got way up there at -31 C / 15 mins and then it went away again... it did turn out to be a very severe storm, but I would have liked to see some sort of continuity to increase my confidence."
- "It seemed that there was a 15-20 minute lead time on seeing the CTC and the storm really intensifying."
- "It seems like you could remove the lower strength of signal in the SATCAST... it gets a bit noisy... maybe anything below 40."
- "Once the storms got off the terrain, the SATCAST strength of signals above 70 would definitely initiate."

Nearcast
- "We saw in both the CAPE and theta-e difference that the values would just blank out with time... we were on the edge of both the GOES-E and GOES-W boundaries."
- There was some discussion about the need to preserve information from both GOES-W and GOES-E, especially over these boundaries in the mountains and high plains.  The forecasters agreed that a merged GOES-W and GOES-E product would be very beneficial.

Overall
- "From an aviation perspective, if I can know an hour or two hours in advance where and when CI will occur, that is incredibly important.  If I can have some strong confidence in that, it would be huge."
- "Having something between watch issuance time and warning time would be incredibly useful in being able to narrow down which areas will go first."

Watching New Development in San Miguel and Western Guadalupe Counties for Possible Warnings…0021Z ABQ Update

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

New towers going up western Guadalupe and San Miguel Counties being watched closely for cooling cloud tops around -15C/15min.  If growth rate increases slightly, may need additional SVRs for this area shortly.

SVR for NE New Mexico…Cloud Tops Growing over Mountians East of ABQ…2250Z ABQ Update

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

Current severe storm situation and warning polygons at 2230Z.  Cu field over the mountains east of ABQ are showing some enhancement with UAH CI values of 70 to 95.  May get initiation east of ABQ…but it appears the plains over eastern NM are still capped off to some degree judging from the visible imagery.

Watching the outflow off the stronger storms over NE NM to fire off new convection along the NM/TX border West of AMA next couple of hours as indicated by OUN WRF.

Cloud Tops Increasing Across Parts of Central/Eastern NM…2205Z ABQ Update

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

Starting to see values around 70 east of ABQ.  May get some convective initiation east of ABQ south of main area of convection now.  Visible shows Cu field growing east of ABQ and towards the TX Panhandle.  Can this be a hint that the development advertised by the OUN WRF just south of the current convective line over NE NM may pan out at little sooner than expected? Here is a look at the latest radar composite…

LUB – Satellite vs. OUN WRF verification

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

Latest run of OUN WRF at 20z still paints convective initiation to occur over the southern portion of the South Plains for 2030z.

Looking at satellite imagery with convective initiation overlaid, convection still is struggling to grow over the region. May be another indication that the OUN WRF initiates convection too soon. But still think that the area will still see organized convection but just a bit later.

MAF – waiting on CI part deux

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

17, 18 and 19z OUN WRF initiated convection in Lea Co and other counties to the southeast by 19-20z.  The CIRA WRF 10.4um simulated IR imagery also developed convection in northeast Pecos Co by 20z, but convection has not developed in MAF CWA per the 20z Goes IR image.

The 1902z UAH-CI Sfc CI also indicated a small area of 90% CI in Lea Co that matched well with the OUN WRF fcst, but the cell did not develop.

MAF: Waiting for CI

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

GOES CI products from UAH and CIMSS not showing a sustained area of CI across Ern NM and SW TX. SE Colorado had some nice CI and subsequent deep convection.

If we can overcome CAP, storms in Ern NM/SW TX will have a lot of CAPE to work with with above normal vertical wind shear for this time of year. SPC has issued an MD for possible severe tstorm watch for SE NM/SW TX.  Not talking it up too much however.

19Z OUNWRF showing that AMA and SJT WFOs may have the most action tonight. We’ll see...

EWP daily debrief 6/12

Today we had the opportunity to debrief our final group of forecasters for the first time this week.  Most of yesterday was spent familiarizing the forecasters with the products in AWIPS II.  Below are some comments gathered during today's debrief...

SATCAST / UW Cloud-top Cooling
- "In Tulsa's area, SATCAST strength of signal was always under 40 or so... at one point it did start to develop a consolidated area just south of I-40 where it was an area that was associated with some enhanced low-level moisture convergence... nothing really happened, but it was still interesting to see the evolution.  The values were still low, so I wasn't really expecting much to happen... it was nice to be able to have some confidence that CI might not occur."
- "We had a little bit down in Birmingham's area and we did see some strength of signals reaching 80 and those did develop and some became severe, so it did a nice job."
- "We had a couple CTCs reach near -20 C / 15 min and we did see a cold pool coming down, so we did go ahead and trigger a warning on it... The one tower that cooled the most was the one that went up the fastest and was associated with some high winds later on."
- "Some of those that were to the north of HUN's area did have some significant CTCs but nothing happened... there were only a couple of these... it seemed like the FAR was pretty low."

Nearcast
- "It was telling us that the axis of instability was going all the way to the coast (and it did) and that would be a huge thing to know, whether the convection would continue or die."
- "In the Tulsa domain, looking at the low level PW and theta-e, it was really showing the drying coming down.... the surface obs saw this too, but it was still interesting to see that and how it affected the convection."

PGLM
- "We saw some increases in lightning activity, but I wouldn't say it became an indicator one way or the other... but we were dealing with an ongoing MCS, so there may not have been many changes going on... it did not sway us in our warning decision."
- "There wasn't much lead time on the occurrence of CGs... they seemed to happen at the same time of the ICs... but again, we were dealing with an MCS."
- "At a CWSU, if I had this data everywhere it would be huge because you may not have any 'ground truth' from CG data with storms that may still have tops up to 32k ft and producing IC flashes that you don't want any planes flying into."
- "It was nice because you can't really see any sort of jumps in lightning from CG data alone."
- "We did have two 60 mph wind reports near Mussel Shoals that were associated with some increases in lightning activity."

HUN: NowCast #2 1733 CDT Monday 11 June

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

UAH_CI and CIMSS Cld Top Cooling imagery indicating potential for stronger storms over southwestern forecast area…mainly Franklin, Lawrence and Cullman counties next hour or so.  Continue Severe Thunderstorm Warnings for Franklin and Colbert counties but threat passing south of Limestone county.  May see shallow spinnup on the leading edge of the bowing structure moving into Red Bay area…but nothing to warn on for tornadoes right now.

TSA — Looking for CI

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

Looking at the various CI products for the TSA CWFA. With the strong EML, it may be tough for the cap to break today with sfc temps only in the lower 90s. Seeing a little more organization in the UAH CI product along the front, but it is possible that we will need to switch domains in the next hour or so if we do not see better development.

EWP week 4 debrief

Today marks the end of 4 weeks of operations in the EWP.  Today we had the opportunity to debrief the forecasters on their experience here over the past week.

SATCAST / UW Cloud-top Cooling
- Yesterday's event over Boulder CWA... "We did try to warn on the CTC a couple times with ongoing severe to the north, the first storm quickly disappeared, but the second one was successful... we did get 1.5" hail out of it."
- "I can definitely see the utility of the products in focusing your attention on what is developing."
- "There were a couple instances where the SATCAST would have a lot of 'confetti', but there weren't any really strong signals... it really showed the utility of having the strength of signal instead of a yes/no."
- "The probabilities for the SATCAST did seem to match up with the overall occurrence of CI."
- "I may have only seen one case this whole week where the -20 C /15 mins signal in the CTC had any severe after it... I think there could be more work done to fine tune those values." - There seems to be some environmental dependance that could be playing a role in how successful the threshold values are in relating to severe weather... It has performed well over past weeks, but in some situations (like the past couple days) the occurrence of severe after a strong cooling rate may be less common.
- "I really liked that 'Ultimate-CI' 4-panel you guys had... that was nice... I would steal that."

Simulated Satellite
- "I found that the placement of convection was really good... the biggest weakness was the timing and the coverage of the storms... I see this as a 'top of the pyramid' product where I will start to get an idea of what's going on over my CWA."
- "It also picked up on the non-convective stuff (jet streaks/shortwaves) really well with the WV."
- "It would be great to get this in GFE."
- "I looked at the band difference, but I didn't really see the utility of it... granted I was more focused on the IR and WV which was more intuitive to me."
- "When we got set up, there was almost always stuff on radar, so we didn't really have much of a use for it."

Nearcast
- "I used it both as a forecast tool and an analysis tool."
- "A lot of the time this week the clouds were just too thick and made it hard to use."
- "I put the OUN WRF reflectivity on one panel with the CAPE and Theta-e products... the convection followed the CAPE/theta-e areas well... it was an interesting way to display it."
- "It was nice that you could use the GOES-E and GOES-W and overlap them to give you the complete picture... the values were a little different where they overlapped, but it still gave you a good picture."
- "It would probably be more useful in the early afternoon."

Sounder Airmass RGB
- "We ingest the other NASA sport RGB products and the color tables were so different for the airmass product that I got a little confused." - They were referring to the MODIS version of the RGB airmass, which does have some different color aspects.
- "I did look at it once and it did pick up on a lot of the larger scale features very well."

PGLM
- Yesterday's event over Sterling CWA... Had a lot of trouble with sensors failing over DCLMA and causing serious detection efficiency issues.
- "Like I said the other day... 5- and 15-minute composites would be great in addition to the 1-minute data."
- "The color curve was a little hard to see, especially for the lower flash amounts."
- "Lightning jumps aren't easily seen in the 2D gridded display... especially at 8km."
- "It would be really cool to see this over smoke plumes... we have seen some CG strikes from smoke plumes before."

Overall / Training
- It was reiterated that for some of these limited coverage datasets (ie - PGLM), it would be nice to have a map of the coverage.
- "The biggest negative was the satellite outage issue... it always seemed to happen right when everything happened." - 1800 and 2100 UTC are prime times for convection... and are also when 30-minute full disk scans occur.
- "Winds an turbulence are our biggest threats (CWSU aviation)... especially relating to non-convective weather and they are hard to pick up on with radar data alone."
- "I thought the change to having a training shift before you arrive was a great idea... it was overall very smooth."
- "I definitely felt more comfortable finding the products yesterday than I did day 1... It might be helpful to just sit down for an hour or two with someone and load the products."
- "Having procedures for the products really helped."
- "Having everything in AWIPS II was fantastic... we really got some good hands on experience with how the products will be used in the future."
- "I really liked the discussions with the developers... it really helped us understand how the products worked."
- "Having a level of uncertainty or confidence displayed within the products is very useful."

CI products on the front range

Forecaster comments from EWP blog..

1932 UTC

2015 UTC

Watching for CI in CO. We have noted moderate to high SOS hits on the higher terrain of CO west of DEN (1930Z and 2015Z images shown). Up to this point this activity has yet to convect. Conditions are ripe so we will see when it does take off.

Update: This initial activity did not convect.

LWX: Watching for lightning…and seeing confetti

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

We’ve started out watching the LWX CWA in the hopes of getting a feel for the DC Lightning Mapping Array.  The equipment, as well as the storms, are not cooperating however.  So, we have been monitoring the CI products in the hopes of seeing some more significant storms pop up.  The UAH CI algorithm has been treating us to a “confetti” pattern such as in the upper left on the IR image, and the lower right on the visible.  This kind of appearance is not surprising given the relative cool pool of air in place across the northeast U.S.  We have gotten a couple of minor UW CI CTC hits that developed into a couple of decent showers on the LWX 88D, which can be seen in the upper right panel. So far though, not a lot of lightning data to look at, and our domain may be shifting soon.