20Z MD for WFO ABQ

[20:00 UTC] Strong to severe convection is well underway across southern and central portions of the ABQ WFO in an environment characterized by ample low level instability on the order of 1500-2000 j/kg of SBCAPE. Although surface to 6 km bulk shear is rather marginal (around 30kts), substantial DCAPE in excess of 1000 j/kg is nudging northward into the CWA per latest SPC mesoanalysis. This would suggest that these storms will be a bit "pulse-y" in nature, with robust updrafts developing but not able to be sustained for extended periods of time with the lack of shear inhibiting storm organization to a degree. This being said, fairly steep mid-level lapse rates on the order of 7.5-8 C/km may support large hail (and potential for very large hail in isolated stronger updrafts).

As we progress through the remainder of the daytime heating hours, the convection (and in particular the potential for strong/severe convection), will shift east through the heart of the ABQ CWA, including through the greater Albuquerque area. With steep mid-level lapse rates, large hail and isolated damaging winds will be the main threats with the strongest activity. With relatively dry air aloft (and near the surface), some of the stronger wind aloft may be translated down to the surface, keeping at least a low end damaging wind threat in the mix through the next handful of hours.

Rosie Red

First Impression of NUCAPS (and NUCAPS soundings)

I like the ability to click on a dot and pull up a NUCAPS sounding. The color-coding is also a plus (though a legend that describes the differences between green, yellow and red...or some descriptor of why a dot is yellow or red as one scrolls over the dot...would certainly help).

If a dot is highlighted as red (presumably meaning there is bad data), is it worth it to even have the option to display the sounding? If NUCAPS soundings were ingested into models as supplemental soundings, would we want data from "red" (or even "yellow") locations included? Probably not...

- Thomas Bell

20Z Update - ABQ

At 20Z, a series of multicell clusters continued to track NE along the I-20 corridor. The strongest cell was located just west of the ABQ metro with ProbSevere indicating a likely severe thunderstorm with ProbHail values ~60%, ProbWind values ~80%, & MRMS MESH just over 1".

GLM flash extent density indicates a weakening trend in the strongest cell west of ABQ. Consequently ProbSevere values drop as well to 50% hail, 67% wind & 0.88" MESH at the end of the loop. Meanwhile an increasing trend in GLM flash density can be seen in the cell over Socorro to the south. ProbSevere values are quite low around 10%, but will be interesting to watch this cell & see if the increase in lightning activity is an initial precursor to a developing severe thunderstorm.

UPDATE (2030Z): Well... despite no real increase in GLM Flash Density the cluster now over the ABQ metro has re-intensified  to a likely severe thunderstorm. ProbHail 85%, ProbWind 82%, 66 dBZ (!!) up to -20C, & MESH estimates of 1.61". In this case increases/decreases in lightning activity did not neccessairly correlate to an increase/decrease in storm strength.

Peter Sunday

Trying to understand GLM data

The amount of GLM data is a bit overwhelming. A 4-panel of GLM Event Density, GLM Flash Extent Density, GLM Average Flash Area and GLM Average Group Area yields a lot of information, but what does it all mean? Would I be able to adequately use it in an operational forecasting/warning environment? Hmmm...

- Thomas Bell

Day One...Getting Used to AWIPS

As a broadcast met...AWIPS is overwhelming to use.  Still getting familiar with seemingly endless uses!

Our team watched over the Wilmington WFO.  SPC just issued a mesoscale disscussion of 5% for a watch (around 2:30pm).  Expecting isolated severe storms...not really organized this evening.

One storm in particular my team is watching has been increasing in lightning strikes and in the probsevere for wind and hail. As well as precipitation rate that seems to be increasing.  Suggestion for another probability option in AWIPS, a probprecip. Showing probability for flash flooding.   I also couldn't get the lightning data to map over the radar.

Still watching the other storms holding together. Minimal probabilities for severe and not trending either way at this time.


2:26pm the storm was showing a 74% chance for probhail. Then started to collapse to 5% probhail by 2:46pm.

  

-Penny Gardens

WFO Albuquerque 19Z Mesoscale Discussion

WFO Albuquerque 1930Z Mesoscale Discussion

At 1930Z, strong to severe thunderstorms were already ongoing west of I-25 in western NM. These storms appear to be overachievers in an environment with ~1000 J/kg of MLCAPE & only 25-30 kts of Effective Bulk Shear analyzed on SPC mesoanalysis. Unfortunately the all-sky GOES-16 derived CAPE is not available today so we're unable to analyze real-time trends in CAPE. MLCAPE is forecast to increase near 2000 J/kg across central & SE NM through the evening with EBS forecast to increase to 30-40 kts in a corridor from ABQ down to the Mexico border. Mid-level lapse rates are quite steep with mesoanalysis showing values of 8-8.5 C/km across central NM. 17Z HRRR shows the multicell clusters currently ongoing continuing to march east, with maybe a supercell or two able to develop especially across southern NM where shear looks a tad bit better.

All in all expecting mostly a hail threat given the storm mode & steep mid-level lapse rates. Patiently awaiting the early afternoon NUCAPS soundings & derived fields to analyze how the environment has evolved since this morning. Morning soundings at ABQ & EPZ did not indicate a strong inverted-V signature developing this afternoon but am interested to see what NUCAPS will reveal this afternoon regarding the wind threat, especially in the environment ahead of the current storms into southern & eastern NM.

Peter Sunday

Severe CI Evaluation - ABQ

[19:00 UTC) As a forecaster for WFO ABQ, certainly the attention of the day has already been drawn to the ongoing convection in the western and southern portions of the CWA. However, in review of the various GOES-East imager suite of products (GOES-West temporal scales were a bit coarser and thus not ideal for rapidly-evolving situations like this case), decided to take a look at the Severe Convective Initiation (CI) Probability data. While the domain of data doesn't quite stretch far enough west to take a look at ongoing strong to severe convection in the western and southern parts of the area, did notice that the Severe CI probability was a bit jumpy with some fair weather cu in my east (with thin cirrus overhead, too).

 

Fig. 1: GOES-East Imager Severe CI Probabilities from 18:17z to 18:32z

Fig. 2: GOES-East Channel 2 Vis from 18:17z to 18:32z 

Certainly this product will provide immense value when there is some temporal continuity, but in this case, its noisiness (jumping from 0% to 77% and back to 0% in consecutive frames) was disregarded for the time being. Will hope to see better temporal continuity for improved interpretation and operational utilization. 

Rosie Red

ProbSevere Indicating Severe Thunderstorm SW of ABQ

Right after sitting down & loading up radar, it looks like a severe thunderstorm was located southwest of Albuquerque. ProbSevere highlighted this cell with ProbWind values of 75% & ProbHail values of 80%. This meshes well with "conventional" tools used to identify severe convection. This storm has 60 dBZ at the -20C level, 50dBZ echoes up to 36000 ft well exceeding the RAP forecast threshold for severe hail (~18000 ft), & a three-body scatter spike evident on 0.5 CC. Additionally MRMS MESH values are between 1.0-1.5" indicating severe hail is likely.

Other nearby storms had ProbSevere values from 30-60% but do not exhibit the conventional signatures I would look for in issuing a warning. Have not had time to perform a standard analysis of the near-storm environment so uncertain if they will continue to intensify, but would likely hold off on issuing on those.

I am viewing the ProbSevere output through the mouse-over sample tool in AWIPS2 but unfortunately the screen truncates the output in a 4 panel display making it hard to read the values for each parameter with all 3 fields loaded (see image below).

UPDATE (2020Z): A 68 mph wind gust was measured with this storm at 1845Z, 3 miles east of Grants, NM

Peter Sunday

Week 4 Day 1 Operations

Today begins the first day of our final week for the 2018 Spring Satellite Experiment. Today we will be operating in the Wilmington, OH and Albuquerque, NM CWAs monitoring storms in the area.

-Michael

Week 3 Wrap Up

Wrap up feedback from our week 3 discussion is posted below. It was another great week of forecaster interaction with a lot of valuable discussion time about the various products. Next week will be our final week for this year's evaluation in the HWT.

GLM

Lightning definitely behaved differently in some of the different environments, particularly in west
Texas where the storms seemed to be less electrified

Good at identifying the intense storms in South Dakota yesterday, seemed to ramp up when storms
were just starting to go severe

The 2 minutes update product seemed to be a pretty good compromise for viewing the data

The parallax shift was more noticeable up in South Dakota than in other areas from throughout the
week.

Had a hard time picking out any features in the core using the GLM products while it was good for
finding the large flashes out in the anvil

The smaller flashes were more difficult to pick out and interpret

ProbSevere

Continue to try to find a way to discriminate the storms better, even at the expense of longer lag time

Did seem to be a lot better calibrated and didn’t overdue probabilities as much as I’m used to

See the use in having the option to have the individual probability contours

ProbTor especially needs to be kept separate to pick out the relative increases

NUCAPS

Better than the sounding that we never get

The modified seemed to be very situation dependent on how much modification took place

Did underdo the lapse rates yesterday quite a bit even in the mid to upper levels

There were definitely some discrepancies between the direct broadcast and the operational

Focus training on the “gotchas”

The awareness is the main point to focus on to get others to use it

The availability of the soundings can help fill a lot of holes

Having some best practice starting procedures would be useful particularly for sending out the
gridded data

All-Sky LAP and CI

CI was still just not very useful and frustrating to put much confidence in

Did reasonably well in the times when it wasn’t really needed, times that it was expected

Didn’t do well at times when it would be most needed

Interested to see some improvement with the GOES-16 training data

There was nothing yesterday in South Dakota leading up to initiation time

LAP did pretty well yesterday, and the GFS fill in areas seemed to do a lot better yesterday than the
day before

Echo the fact that getting a higher resolution or faster updating model would still be ideal

There was a more smooth transition between the clear and cloudy regions than previous days

Values also seemed to be better than the baseline GOES data

Good to be aware of which data type is filling in the retrieval at that point

The PW products seemed to make terrain features stand out in certain cases

The Layered PWAT color tables should probably be adjusted to pick out the smaller scale gradients
easier

General

It was good to be immersed in the science and learn the new tools in a familiar setting

Turn the data on and use it

Getting into the nuts and bolts has been invigorating

Very helpful having experts here for explanation and question answering

-Michael