1.5 Hour Lead Time from UAH CI Algorithm

Figure 1.
UAH CI forecast (red) valid from the 2040 UTC GOES imagery.

















Figure 2.
Radar valid at 2042 UTC.

















Figure 3.
Radar valid at 2209 UTC.

The UAH CI algorithm forecasted CI (first instance of 35+dBZ radar echo) approximately 1.5 hours before it was detected on radar for this case in western Minnesota (Figures 1 - 3, above). As subsequent GOES imagery rolled in, the algorithm continued to forecast CI down along a line of growing clouds to the south, achieving lead times of around 1 hour. According to the Storm Prediction Center storm reports (see Figure 4, below), this line of storms quickly turned severe and went on to produce several instances of large hail and even a tornado!


















Figure 4.
SPC storm reports for 05/10/2011, valid through ~12 UTC on 05/11/2011.

Innovative Methods for Displaying UAH CI Product in AWIPS

Some of the forecasters here in the Experimental Warning Program are finding creative ways to integrate the UAH CI product (GOES-R AWG CI product proxy) into their AWIPS workstations. Above is an excellent example of this. In the top-left display quadrant, the Null (blue) and Positive (red) cloud object CI forecasts are overlaid onto GOES Visible satellite data, with an option to change the transparency of the two integrated data sets at the touch of a button. Similarly, in the top-right display quadrant, the UAH CI product is overlaid onto radar data.... This way the forecasters will know where to focus their attention on the radar for future development, especially in regions where severe weather is expected but not yet initiated.

Use of Simulated Imagery for Convective Initiation on Day 1

On Day 1 of the 2011 Spring Experiment, the Convective Initiation forecast desk chose a focus area over northeast Wyoming, western Nebraska and western South Dakota. During the forecast process, we viewed the simulated 6.95 micrometer band based on the NSSL WRF-ARW, and noted during the morning hours that the timing and location of the shortwave trough moving through Utah and entering Colorado was handled quite well by the model (see the top panel of the image above). Later in the forecast, the model generated convection in eastern Wyoming very close to what was observed. This is a nice example of how the simulated imagery is very useful for morning model evaluation.

UAH CI (SATCAST) Now Up and Flowing...

Despite a few early glitches in the product delivery, the UAH CI product is now flowing into the SPC Hazardous Weather Testbed AWIPS and N-AWIPS workstations regularly. The posted pic (above) is the first image that was received for "real-time" display in this year's newly created Convective Initiation desk.

From the time of the first GOES scan line (the image time stamp), it took only 10 minutes for the data to be processed, delivered, and displayed..... This is a significant advantage over the time latency issues the UAH CI product had from last year (our first year of "real-time" processing and evaluation). This is typical for Northern Hemisphere scans from GOES. For pure CONUS scans from GOES, it generally only takes about 8 minutes to accomplish the same process. From the moment the GOES data is downloaded, it takes a mere ~1.5 - 2.5 minutes to process it and produce the CI output forecast.

Day 2... Data Flow

So today marks the first full day of the experiment... The morning started with a few data flow issues... all of which have been resolved. The data flow for the Spring Experiment is now completely up and running...

The morning EWP forecasters have been sitting with the EFP CI desk where they have been looking at the NSSL-WRF simulated satellite imagery as well as the 10-12 micron band difference while deciding what domain they should choose for their forecast.

The EWP morning shift have written their first area forecast discussion (AFD) for where the EWP should operate throughout the afternoon... which they have chosen to be central TX. The EFP will continue to discuss their forecasts until lunch and then we will have our first joint EFP/EWP map discussion at 1pm.

Will update as the day progresses...

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!

Let the 2011 Experiment Begin!

Welcome back! It's that time of year again, when we all get together for a 5-week period and talk about science!

We are officially less than 1 week away from the beginning of the experiment so I thought I would get on, knock the dust of this thing and update some of the links. Once again, participants will be encouraged to also post on this blog about their experiences at the experiment and with the products being demonstrated this year.

This year's experiment will be slightly different than previous years with the addition of a morning shift within Experimental Warning Program (EWP). Also, the Experimental Forecast Program (EFP) has added a dedicated convective initiation (CI) desk that will work closely with the EWP morning shift and GOES-R to make forecasts of convective initiation throughout the day. The EWP will also continue its traditional warning shift and the EFP will continue to operate its severe and QPF forecast desks. We are hoping to have more cross participation between the 2 programs this year starting with the EWP morning shift/EFP CI desk collaboration, as well as a new daily 1pm joint briefing.

We will be having 9 individual products being demonstrated this year... some updated versions of previous products and some completely new ones. Below is a list of what we will have this year...

- SATCAST convective initiation nowcast (UAH/SPoRT)
- UWCI / cloud-top cooling rate (UW-CIMSS)
- Overshooting-top / thermal couplet detection and magnitude (UW-CIMSS)
- Psudeo-geostationary lightning mapper (NASA SPoRT / NSSL)
- 0-9 hour Nearcast (University of Wisconsin - CIMSS)
- 0-3 hour severe and significant hail probability (CIRA)
- NSSL-WRF simulated lightning threat (NSSL/USRA)
- NSSL-WRF simulated satellite imagery (UW-CIMSS/CIRA/NSSL)
- NSSL-WRF simulated band differences (CIRA)

The details about these products will begin to emerge as the experiment unfolds and we will be providing real-time posts of product cases and interactions with forecasters during experimental forecast/warning operations.

I look forward to working with all of this year's participants and expect a very fruitful experiment. I would also like to thank everyone who has helped put this together so far, as well as those who have agreed to participate.

End of the experiment

Well, this marks a close to this year's Spring Experiment activities. We will begin again in the late summer this year with the Fire Weather and Heavy rain experiment starting August 24 and ending September 3. I would like to thank all of the participants this year from the various cooperative institutes and partners for coming and assisting in the product training and participating in the experiments alongside the forecasters. Without this participation, the experiment would not have been a success. I would also like to thank all the forecasters who participated this year and took valuable time away from their WFOs to come out and give us their time. The feedback gathered from the forecasters in the EFP and the EWP this year provided invaluable information to help improve the GOES-R products we evaluated this year. While not all feedback gathered this year may have been positive, it is important to remember that understanding the shortcomings in the demonstration strategy and the products themselves is essential to develop a robust product set prior to operational use once GOES-R launches. I would particularly like to thank Andy Dean, Gregg Grosshans, Israel Jirak and Chris Melick from the SPC's Science Support Branch for setting up and providing technical support for the NAWIPS systems on the EFP side. I would also like to thank Ben Baranowski and Darrel Kingfield from WDTB, as well as Kristin Kuhlman, Kevin Manross, Greg Stumpf and Travis Smith from NSSL for their assistance in setting up the AWIPS systems and providing technical support for the EWP side throughout the weeks. Without all of these people there would have been no experiment and I greatly appreciate all of their efforts. We are looking forward to continued interactions with the forecaster and product developer communities throughout the next year and into the coming years.

Thank you!

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.

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.