Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Simulated IR Imagery: 22Z
Simulated satellite imagery from last night's 00Z WRF runs showed strong convection
near Lake Ontario in the early afternoon with clearing in western New York
during the late afternoon hours. Convection only sporadically tries to
develops until well after 00Z in western New York.
GOES-R Product Update @ HWT - 22 May 2013
Most of the GOES-R products are not in play on the EWP side of HWT today due to the GOES-13 outage. The forecasters are working in Western NY in the Buffalo and Binghamton CWAs.
Therefore, there will be a limited number of blog posts today.
Therefore, there will be a limited number of blog posts today.
Daily Debrief: 5/20/13 and 5/21/13
With Monday being the "spin up" day and Tuesday a late shift where the Convective Initiation and Cloud-Top Cooling products were not utilized since convection was ongoing, only a few of the GOES-R products had utility in Tuesday's operations. We were hoping for better CI chances the next two days but now with GOES-13 out...the NearCast, CI, and CTC products will not be available until 23 May 2013 around 6Z at the earliest. Here are the highlights of the last two days...
NearCast
The GOES-R NearCast Thte-E trends and instability fields were good.
The NearCast instability products showed that instability was really increasing ahead of the southern Mississippi Valley line between 00-06Z last night...which suggested a prolonged event. The squall line kept going through the southeast and wind damage ended up occurring into central MS.
Convective Initiation
The Convective Initiation product picked up on intiiation potential in between the clusters...higher probabilities.
It appears that the CI product had limited false detections...low probabilities did not tend to develop into 35 dBZ echoes.
The CI product would be helpful when there are outdoor events going on that you are monitoring.
On Monday, the CI product gave a good indication of developing convection along the TX portion of the dryline after storms initiated in OK.
WRF Simulated Forecasts
The simulated IR forecasts showed good accuracy in the two lines of convection...overall pretty good.
I felt the IR forecasts were impressive...there was a single line of convection with good placement and it was remarkably similar to what was going on. This was using a 23-h fcst.
Cloud-Top Cooling
Early on Monday, the Wichita Falls, TX storm had a strong CTC signal and that storm went on to produce baseballs.
It will be interesting to see how the CTC product will work for situational awareness for pulse severe situations.
PGLM
I used the PGLM moving trace tool for situational awareness on a few storms. Maybe during the heat of major outbreak it would take too much time to use...but this remains to be seen.
It does get difficult to assess more than one storm using the moving trace tool.
NearCast
The GOES-R NearCast Thte-E trends and instability fields were good.
The NearCast instability products showed that instability was really increasing ahead of the southern Mississippi Valley line between 00-06Z last night...which suggested a prolonged event. The squall line kept going through the southeast and wind damage ended up occurring into central MS.
Convective Initiation
The Convective Initiation product picked up on intiiation potential in between the clusters...higher probabilities.
It appears that the CI product had limited false detections...low probabilities did not tend to develop into 35 dBZ echoes.
The CI product would be helpful when there are outdoor events going on that you are monitoring.
On Monday, the CI product gave a good indication of developing convection along the TX portion of the dryline after storms initiated in OK.
WRF Simulated Forecasts
The simulated IR forecasts showed good accuracy in the two lines of convection...overall pretty good.
I felt the IR forecasts were impressive...there was a single line of convection with good placement and it was remarkably similar to what was going on. This was using a 23-h fcst.
Cloud-Top Cooling
Early on Monday, the Wichita Falls, TX storm had a strong CTC signal and that storm went on to produce baseballs.
It will be interesting to see how the CTC product will work for situational awareness for pulse severe situations.
PGLM
I used the PGLM moving trace tool for situational awareness on a few storms. Maybe during the heat of major outbreak it would take too much time to use...but this remains to be seen.
It does get difficult to assess more than one storm using the moving trace tool.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
HWT EWP Status for 22 May 2013: 12-8 pm Shift
Note from the EWP coordinator:
Slight Risk for portions of the upper Ohio Valley and the northeast, with the highest probabilities of severe centered over Ohio. The upper level trough continues slowly eastward, and at least one notable wave is progged to swing around the base. Low to moderate instability is expected as a surface cold front moves through the area. Expect convection to develop by early afternoon, and peak in severe potential during the late afternoon and early evening hours, after which it should tail off in severity. Expecting marginally severe hail (up to 1.5″) and possible wind damage up to 65 mph.
Likely CWAs: Wilmington OH, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh
The blog will be updated after 12pm CDT with GOES-R posts.
Slight Risk for portions of the upper Ohio Valley and the northeast, with the highest probabilities of severe centered over Ohio. The upper level trough continues slowly eastward, and at least one notable wave is progged to swing around the base. Low to moderate instability is expected as a surface cold front moves through the area. Expect convection to develop by early afternoon, and peak in severe potential during the late afternoon and early evening hours, after which it should tail off in severity. Expecting marginally severe hail (up to 1.5″) and possible wind damage up to 65 mph.
Likely CWAs: Wilmington OH, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh
The blog will be updated after 12pm CDT with GOES-R posts.
New York, New York
Note from the EWP coordinator:
The NE TX activity was mostly a “wind bag”, with very little hail or tornado threat any more. So we have opted to complete our shift up in the Empire State. Our new CWAs: Albany and Binghamton
The NE TX activity was mostly a “wind bag”, with very little hail or tornado threat any more. So we have opted to complete our shift up in the Empire State. Our new CWAs: Albany and Binghamton
Mesoscale Update - 00z WRF Simulated IR and Nearcast
I was very impressed with the accuracy of the WRF simulated IR (top left panel) given that the image valid at 23z is a 23hr forecast and was very close to verifying (second image below). See the two images below.
This NearCast shows a very unstable environment (bottom right image...valid at 0630Z) through the night, which should sustain the convective bow as it tracks across Louisiana. The instability and environment actually seems to improve based on this nearcast model. Will see if this verifies.
Wesely
Wesely
EWP2013 Mesoscale Discussion 21 May 2000 UTC
LAPS 2.5 Theta-E advection was strongest from central TX near more isolated/discrete severe storms from Burnet, Brady, to Hamilton Texas and northeast through Corsicana to Clarksville along the Red River Valley. GOES-R cloud top cooling (CTC) and Convective Initiation (CI) forecasts just an hour or so ago indicated the increase in the isolated severe cells over central TX well. However, GOES-R positioning was off, but not too far off regarding the tail end of the linear MCS across north and northeast TX.
CIMSS NearCast Layer GOES Theta-E and PWAT differences did show maximums right where the Brady and Burnet convection in central TX was occurring and handling maximum stripe just ahead of the linear MCS moving east across I-35 further across north and northeast TX.
OUN_LAPS SBCAPE appeared to be well in line with current SPC mesoanalyis real-time values and can be trusted for the next 1-2 hours. During the late afternoon and early evening hours, we expect the linear MCS to continue to progress east with potential for embedded meso-vorticies and weaker tornadoes along the leading edge, while larger discrete supercell storms both ahead across the east Texas Piney Woods and southwest into the eastern Texas Hill Country and central Texas to contain more intense modes. These storms will likely see better inflow of rich Theta-E air from the Gulf of Mexico leading to lower LCLs, and the potential for very large hail and longer track tornadoes, if the tail-end of the upper level forcing from long wave trough over the Plains can extend that far south.
CIMSS NearCast Layer GOES Theta-E and PWAT differences did show maximums right where the Brady and Burnet convection in central TX was occurring and handling maximum stripe just ahead of the linear MCS moving east across I-35 further across north and northeast TX.
OUN_LAPS SBCAPE appeared to be well in line with current SPC mesoanalyis real-time values and can be trusted for the next 1-2 hours. During the late afternoon and early evening hours, we expect the linear MCS to continue to progress east with potential for embedded meso-vorticies and weaker tornadoes along the leading edge, while larger discrete supercell storms both ahead across the east Texas Piney Woods and southwest into the eastern Texas Hill Country and central Texas to contain more intense modes. These storms will likely see better inflow of rich Theta-E air from the Gulf of Mexico leading to lower LCLs, and the potential for very large hail and longer track tornadoes, if the tail-end of the upper level forcing from long wave trough over the Plains can extend that far south.
CI/CTC AWIPS2 Loop
Tried to manually loop a 4 panel image of CI/CTC/Radar/Vis and with a 40 plus frame count it was too slow to be useful. It took over 20 seconds for all parameters to load. However, at a frame count of 12 it was much faster and of more use for following trends.
Wesely
Wesely
HWT EWP Status for 21 May 2013: 2-10 pm Shift
Note from the EWP coordinator:
Moderate Risk again for portions of SE OK, AR, NE TX, and NW LA. Convection will be ongoing in the late morning, and is expected to continue well into the late evening and overnight hours. With better convective initiation opportunities to occur later this week, and to allow for some time in the morning for damage survey activities in Moore, we are opting to capture the later portion of this event.
Likely CWAs: Shreveport, Fort Worth, Little Rock, Tulsa, and Norman
The blog will be updated after 2pm CDT with appropriate GOES-R posts.
Moderate Risk again for portions of SE OK, AR, NE TX, and NW LA. Convection will be ongoing in the late morning, and is expected to continue well into the late evening and overnight hours. With better convective initiation opportunities to occur later this week, and to allow for some time in the morning for damage survey activities in Moore, we are opting to capture the later portion of this event.
Likely CWAs: Shreveport, Fort Worth, Little Rock, Tulsa, and Norman
The blog will be updated after 2pm CDT with appropriate GOES-R posts.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Welcome to HWT Week 3
Welcome to week 3 of the HWT. The forecasters are busy trying to get spun up on using all the demonstration products in a short amount of time since storms have exploded over OK earlier this afternoon. Once this takes place, the blog will explode as well. :-)
Forecasters are here from Wakefield, VA, Fort Worth, TX, Huntsville, AL, Upton, NY, and the Norman, OK forecasters will join us tomorrow hopefully. Most of the Norman folks were out completing storm surveys this morning from yesterday's tornadoes...which very may well occur again tomorrow. GOES-R support this week at HWT includes myself (Chad), Jim Gurka, and Lori Schultz.
There have been problems with data ingest earlier...but now things are slowly coming back online.
Since I started this post...a devastating tornado tracked 8 miles north of the National Weather Center. Its a chilling reminder that one of the GOES-R goals is to assist in increasing lead time for tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings.
Forecasters are here from Wakefield, VA, Fort Worth, TX, Huntsville, AL, Upton, NY, and the Norman, OK forecasters will join us tomorrow hopefully. Most of the Norman folks were out completing storm surveys this morning from yesterday's tornadoes...which very may well occur again tomorrow. GOES-R support this week at HWT includes myself (Chad), Jim Gurka, and Lori Schultz.
There have been problems with data ingest earlier...but now things are slowly coming back online.
Since I started this post...a devastating tornado tracked 8 miles north of the National Weather Center. Its a chilling reminder that one of the GOES-R goals is to assist in increasing lead time for tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings.
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