Week 1 debrief

We have reached the end of a very successful first week at HWT. Today was a shorter day dedicated to the GOES-R focused 'Tales from the Testbed' as well as a weekly debrief. This debrief covered our activities from yesterday as well as a wrap-up discussion from the entire including topics like which products were used, how they were used, what we can take away from the experience, and what is the next step for the experiment products within in an operational setting. Check it out...

PGLM
- 'We were able to successfully issue a warning in Lubbock based only the PGLM and golf ball sized hail resulted from the storm.'
- 'The one minute update for the total lightning data is a huge benefit over the traditional radar updates.'
- 'There was a storm that barely reached 40 flashes and ended up dropping penny sized hail, so [the PGLM] was fairly successful in this case.'

Cloud Top Cooling
- 'We had upwards of an hour and a half lead time given by the CTC in the Lubbock/Amarillo area.'
- 'The product wasn't useful in areas were there was cirrus contamination.'

GOES-R CI
- 'There was a 97% CI hit on the storms in Lubbock and it was successful.'
- 'The CI is too noisy. THe 10, 20, and 30% values are just a little too much. Maybe it would be better to use values of only 50% and greater.'
- 'The strength of signal concept was good.'
- 'The instantaneous concept of the CI made the product less intuitive, it jumped around. Perhaps it would be better if it focused more on the trend (i.e. a consistently increasing strength of signal on a particular area of cu).'
- 'You could see some of the trend in the CI, but then it faded again. If this happens, as a forecaster you think maybe [storm development] isn't going to happen.'
- 'Some additional continuity would be nice... for example, giving a probability of convective initiation over a specific area at a specific time.'

Forecaster thoughts... i.e. how would do we integrate these into an actual operational setting?
- 'A lot of the experimental products a very useful, but for a warning forecaster their first instinct would be to look back to the base data. It seems that this data would be more useful to a mesoscale analyst, who has time to look at each product in detail.'
- 'It may be hard for a warning forecaster to be looking at the experimental data because there's just so much of it, especially when things are rapidly developing.'
- 'As a warning forecaster I do use some of the experimental data when I can, but don't always have tie to look at all that stuff. That would definitely be useful for a mesosscale analyst and share with the warning forecaster.'
- 'Our mentality is, warning are the most important thing, even in an experimental setting... so it's good to view these new products with that mindset.'
- 'The training had me comfortable with the products when we came in... learning how the interpretation various and also finding out how to work with the products together was a challenge.'
- 'I could see myself using all the products we used this week in an operational setting.'
- 'You have to incorporate the products into an operational mindset. Once you get more used to them it becomes easier, but it's definitely not an immediate process. It take time to become comfortable with them and figure out how exactly it can be incorporated into your own procedures.'

The discussion today, particularly regarding integrating these new products into current forecast operations, was very enlightening. Forecasters have their own mindset when issuing warnings, etc., and  trying to integrate new products into this process is an interesting challenge faced by all in research to operations. However, testbeds like HWT are, I believe the stepping towards towards a successful R to O, and I look forward to continuing this effort next week.

See you then!

EWP daily debriefing 5/7

This afternoon we had our first EWP daily debrief from the previous day's activities. Yesterday the focus was on the mid-Atlantic coast, specifically the Blacksburg, VA CWA, and while forecasters did issue a handful of warnings, it was an overall quiet day. However, the more docile weather allowed them a chance to work through each set of new data, learning which products they have at their disposal and how to use them. Here are a few comments picked up throughout the day:

Simulated Imagery
- 'We used the simulated imagery to forecast the dissipation of storms in the evening.' This along with the Nearcasting indicated the dissipation of storms in the area of interest.
- 'The WRF simulated imagery seems to be more spotty; it doesn't often seem to forecast the broader cloud shields associated with storm systems.'

Nearcasting Model
- 'The theta-e difference showed stable air moving into the area' and along with the simulated imagery, was used in the forecasting of the dissipation of the storms.
- 'I liked the two and three hour forecasting'

GOES-R CI and Cloud Top Cooling
- Because of the more docile weather 'there were no 80/90% CI values so it made the product more difficult to use'

RGB Airmass
- 'It takes some time to intuitively understand exactly what you're looking at with this product and how it can be integrated into your forecasting techniques, but it has potential'

Training
- Forecasters completed a training shift previous to their arrival in Norman. Monday was then used as a low key forecasting day, giving them a chance to get familiar with the products in an operational setting
- 'Having a chance to interact and use the products on a less busy day was very helpful'

Stay tuned to the blog for further feedback and updates on daily activity!

Aug 9, 2012 CTC & Radar Comparison

Given active weather pattern (deepening upper level trough over Great Lakes) with showers and storms over Wisconsin, it wasn't hard to find quick growing cells with at least moderate Cloud Top Cooling (CTC) rates.

There were some breaks in the cloud field over northwestern Wisconsin.  Perhaps this helped oen cell in a line to pulse up.  We were able to spot CTC rates in the moderate range with a value of 17 to 18 over northwestern Washburn County.  Further north in St. Louis County of northeastern Minnesota we observed a CTC value of 12 to 13. See Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Maximum CTC rates of 17 to 18 over Washburn County.

 We then compared the cells with decent CTC rates with what the WSR-88D Radars depicted.  SEe Figure 2 below for the radar image which corresponds to Figure 1.

Figure 2. Radar image at 1643Z August 9, 2012.

The decent CTC rates would imply an increase in cell intensity observed on radar.  This intensity increase is noted in Figure 3 below, especially in the St. Louis cell which had a 60 dBZ signature.  Of course, these storms were not severe, but it was nice to see that the CTC rate idea enabled us to anticipate an increase in cell intensity.

Figure 3. Radar image at 1706z August 9, 2012.

Rusty Kapela - MKX
Ed Townsend - MKX
Justin Sieglaff - CIMSS

EWP daily debrief 5/8

Today we had our first daily debrief with the EWP forecasters.  The forecasters were focused on the San Angelo and Austin, TX areas issuing severe thunderstorm warnings throughout the evening.  We discussed the previous day's activities and asked them a little about what they thought about the product performance during their warning operations...


SATCAST / UW-CTC
- The forecasters created a procedure called "Awesome CI" to complement last year's "Ultimate CI" (which we have made available to the forecasters in AWIPS II) that included the SATCAST product with the UW cloud-top cooling, along with OUN-WRF hourly theta-e and wind fields to combine both observed CI products with some model-based analysis fields... "Helped increase our situational awareness, which was a big plus."
- NWS Charleston forecaster mentioned both CI products back to home office and said they were very excited to look at them.
- "When the (SATCAST) data was coming in there was some positive responses to it... there were consecutive images where there were strong signals and it definitely increased my confidence."
- "With these products, even with training, experience is the key thing to get forecasters to use it."
- "It was nice having both the SATCAST and the CTC, where one is more sensitive and helping identify the area, the other helped key in on those really strong storms that I should be paying attention to."
- Would it have been helpful to see the feedback questions before going into operations to get an idea of what to look for?  "It might have helped direct us."
- "With the CTC, most of the signals were out in W TX and we weren't really looking at the radar, and those strong signals helped."

Nearcast
- Theta-e difference used extensively when storms were already mature... monitored what environment the storms were moving into... helpful in identifying intensification.
- "Could clearly see the boundary between the more stable air and unstable air."
- Couldn't get all the individual field levels in AWIPS II... was only able to get the difference.

Overall / Training
- Would be helpful to get some of the WES procedures built into AWIPS II.
- All these products would be helpful if someone was assisting the warning forecaster looking at these (and other) derived products.
-  Do you feel comfortable with the current training setup, do you want more time with the PIs or material on Monday?  "Getting us into that mindset prior to arrival with the WES case was very beneficial."

Day 1... Training Day

Today marks the beginning of the 2011 Spring Experiment in the Hazardous Weather Testbed. While the beginning of the day was spent introducing ourselves to... ourselves, we did provide a good deal of forecaster training on the EWP side. EWP forecasters participated in 4 hours of training on the products they would be using throughout the week within their AWIPS systems. Most of the training was given by the visiting scientists via PowerPoint presentation. Each presentation lasted about ~30 minutes, with time afterward for comments a questions.

Geoffrey Stano (NASA SPoRT) provides training on the PGLM to WFO forecasters during EWP training session.
The forecasters were very engaged and often asked how to obtain these products within their local AWIPS at their WFOs. Luckily because of the Proving Ground's emphasis on bringing WFOs experimental GOES-R data, the core cooperative institutes (UW-CIMSS, CIRA and SPoRT) have already prepared for this and it was easy to explain how this could be done. Because of the coordination with theSPC and HWT over the past few years, UW-CIMSS has set up a webpage that has step-by-step instructions for ingesting and displaying their products within any AWIPS system. See... http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes_r/proving-ground/SPC/SPC.html Kudos!