Summer Local Area Testbed 6/19/2012

 This is the CIMSS Cloud Top Cooling image overlaid on the GOES regional scale visible satellite image displayed on AWIPS at 1902Z on June 19th, 2012. The display showed a -9.55C/15 min rate of cooling over Clay County, MN east of Fargo, N.D.

  
 This is the same image combination of visible satellite and CIMSS Cloud Top Cooling at 1915Z with a maximum cooling rate of -26.5C/15 min. over eastern Clay County, MN.

   This the GOES-R ABI Band 10 7.34um water vapor image valid at 18z 06/19/ 2012. Note the minimal highlight over far west-central Minnesota, with convection over northeast North Dakota and across northern Minnesota.

  This is the GOES-R ABI Band 10 7.34um image valid at 19Z 6/19/2012. Notice the pinpoint development of convection along the North Dakota/Minnesota border just northeast of Fargo.

  This is the GOES-R ABI Band 13 image valid at 20Z 6/19/2012. Note the rapid development near Fargo, as well as the more expansive development to the northeast.

 This is the IR image from 2001Z 6/12/2012. Comparing to the ABI Band 13 image above, note the similarity of placement of the cloud shield from the convection near Fargo as well as the cold cloud tops with convection to the northeast, though the actual IR image shows one continuous shield from the two areas, while ABI depicts two distinct areas. The ABI forecast was within one county of the actual development and had an excellent handle on the evolution of the convection in this time period. 

This is the 0.5 degree composite reflectivity image from the KABR WSR-88D at 1857Z 6/19/2012. The cell is developing over southwest Clay County, MN.

 This is the 0.5 degree composite reflectivity image from the KABR WSR-88D at 1902Z 6/19/2012. The cell continued to develop over south central Clay County, MN.The cell eventually strengthened as it lifted to the northeast with composite reflectivity of 55 to 60 dBZ over eastern Clay County at 1920z. The CIMSS Cloud Top Cooling product effectively tagged this cell 18 minutes before it reached peak intensity.

Bob McMahon NWS MIlwaukee/Sullivan WI

End of the 2012 Spring Experiment

This marks the end of this year's Spring Experiment in the HWT.  We had a very productive 6 weeks of experiment with 32 NWS forecasters invited to participate in activities this year.  I would like to thank all of those visiting scientists who came and participated with the forecasters during this year's activities.  Without the help of the visiting scientists, it would have been difficult to capture all of the quality feedback that we did for the various GOES-R Proving Ground products.  In addition, I would like to thank the local NSSL/SPC/NWS personnel that kept this thing running week-to-week.  I would like to give special thank you to Darrel Kingfield at NSSL for putting together this year's Weather Event Simulator case for training and making AWIPS II ready for prime-time in the HWT.  Finally, I would like to thank WDTB for organizing and running this year's weekly "Tales from the Testbed" webinars.  They were a great success, giving the forecasters the opportunity to champion the products they found most useful to their peers across the country.

We already have a lot of exciting ideas to move forward over the next year in the HWT.  In addition, I am sure there is still plenty of exciting weather to happen this year.  I will be posting some examples of how the GOES-R Proving Ground products available to the Storm Prediction Center perform during these cases when possible.  Stay tuned!

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."

ABQ: CTC + Situational Awareness = Great Fcst

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

Although we are in AMA, we took a look at the CTC in NM, since that area has seen significant CTC signals over the last week. Once again, we are seeing strong CTC signals off the terrain in NM with little or no convective development. Here are a series of 3 signals in the same place over several hours. Take home point — this is a great product, however forecasters need to know their environment to use this product in enhanced warning ops and beware of times that the convection is being forced by the terrain. Case in point, although the CTC product showed -20->-25c/15min cooling values over higher terrain areas in SE NM, the sfc dwpts were in the teens and lower 20s. Almost no way convection could develop with this dry air.

2015z:

2215z:

2315z:

MPX: CTC -27c/15min in Brown County — Sign of more to come?

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

Just got -27c/15min in the CTC product in Brown County — just west of MPX CWFA. This corresponds well to a developing echo in central Brown County. Perhaps a sign of more severe weather shortly?

GID Update…Potential for Strong Storms Hall County and East Over the Next Hour

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

Strongest CTC indication yet on latest pass.  Would issue an outlook for strong storms may be developing in the next hour based on environment and what we are seeing in the CTC rates.

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…

MPX: Potential New Severe Thunderstorm

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

Cloud top cooling product shows new potential, if only briefly. Max cooling reached <-22 degrees C.  The area of concern is closer to the un-worked over air, but it will be moving into LaCrosse’s CWA soon. Might be able to warn on it before it moves out.

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.

GID Waiting for the First Storms… A Few Early Indicators

Forecaster comments from EWP blog...

Quiet on the southwestern front at this hour…but we are starting to see a few echoes along the boundary.  Latest OUNWRF wants to gen up a few storms along the boundary in the next hour or two…but then really gens up quite a bit of convection with a fairly large cold pool generating towards the 5 PM hour.

Not many signals being noted in the CTC or the CI products at this time, but we did get a CI 72 indication with a small tower going up on the boundary on the previous pass…will see if anything comes of it. Looking to the southwest upstream in the environmental flow, we note a few Cu towers going up at a faster rate and thinking this activity could move up into our area in the next 3 hours.  See no reason why it won’t get going to the southwest given available instability.

NRE theta-e products showing a fairly unstable airmass over the area…and with near full insolation on the Cu field southeast of the boundary we expect initiation in the next 2 hours across the forecast area…