This marks the conclusion of the GOES-R portion of the 2014 HWT Spring Experiment!
- Bill Line, SPC/HWT Satellite Liaison
Simulated Satellite Imagery:
- It’s great to use the imagery to evaluate model performance.
- Had issues with burning off low stratus too early, leading to errors with heating during the day and errors of convection timing
- Do you see simulated model imagery being useful in forecast environment; would you like to see this data with other high res models?
o All say yes, it is useful and would like to see it with other models (hrrr, etc)
o Higher res models might pick up more discrete features things
- Easy ways to pick up on errors in the model
Nearcast
- I used it mainly for ted and pw, it almost shows this better then anything I have in my office
- Nice to have in awips to overlay other things
- Helpful to show where boundaries will move, areas that are moistening
- Best as a precursor, ~3 hours prior to ci mostly
- I like the fact that you could really key in on boundaries, and I saw convection go there.
- Even subtle gradients up in high plains, small increases in ted, see showers pop up
- In Raleigh, having a tool that may easily show boundaries, esp in spring and summer, it could help
- I see more utility in theta-e and ted than in the PW field
- Calibration issue, we are used to looking at CAPE and LI. What does the ted values mean? Is there a way to do this?
- Its real-world information, which is good
- Overlayed forcing parameters on it.
Ci
- Didn’t increase my confidence as much as I had hoped
- One cell I tracked for a while in Huntsville area, had pretty high value, that did go up and eventually became strong
- Get rid of lower values
Probsevere
- This is especially useful for more slowly developing convection. Storms that look the same may have different probs, pointing out which storms are actually more threatening,
- Not as useful when convection is rapidly developing. The 1-2 scan lag hurts
- Good as a confirmation tool even for mature convection
- Good for slowly developing storms, detects hail well, poor with wind, not sure with tors. Prob severe hail may be better name. Rapidly growing convection, it wasn’t as useful with lag (1 volume scan), which hurt.
- Broadcaster – I really enjoyed this product. I am doing a lot during a day, especially severe day, it pinpointed where I should look. Same with CI
- Right now, as a regional SA tool, storms coming in from neighboring CWA, would be good to watch. Also for updating warnings.
- Column velocity to determine wind threat,
- Seems like product that has room to do some interesting things.
- with prob severe/hail/wind/tor, have a 4 panel, with total severe and 3 threats. Different parameter underlaid each
Overshooting Tops
- Broadcaster – really useful for me, in busy environment. I can speak for every broadcaster, we’d all love to have this product.
- More utility at night than during the day
- Helpful to CWSU cause I'm looking at a much larger area
Tracking tool
- This trend information is beneficial to have.
- Probably best for warning coordinator, or for research purposes. It is high maintenance, takes a lot of work to use
Lightning
- Broadcaster – lightning is especially useful for me, the chopper folks are constantly asking me where there is lightning to decide whether it is safe for them or not
- Most useful for rapidly developing convection
- Any time a jump occurred on a storm, the dBz’s would spike soon after
- I think it is everybody’s favorite thing, the lightning
- Most helpful for a warning operator, everything else was more SA.
o Mostly because we had information every minute.
o Getting additional info while we are waiting for next volume scan
- It impacted my warning decision making process.
- Especially useful in rapidly developing convection
- Broadcaster – lightning is very important even if it isn’t severe
- I wish I had more time to look at it.
- Training for lightning is not that good, to understand more why/how this is working, would be helpful. Why in certain environments and situations would it not work so well. But why better in others
o Explain what is going in and why it is working
Broadcaster – from this perspective, most of the products demonstrated make it easier for him to do his job, because he can easily spot where a new storm is coming up in busy situations, where lightning is increasing. It helps make things easier for everyone at station.
CWSU – CI and OTD would be most useful for me, covering a broad forecast area. OTD quickly shows me where the strongest updrafts are, and ci highlights where convection is initiating or most likely to initiate in the near future. Also, lightning data is valuable for me.
General – be cautious of data overload. Products have to quickly prove their worth and utility in operations. Some products might be more useful for a warning coordinator, while lightning and maybe prob severe could be helpful for radar operator
Overall
- 1pm briefings from EFP, is there a reason for us to be in on that. A lot of it was not important
- Even from the briefings, I had no idea what was going on. It seemed more like a debrief for themselves. It had no application to us, it was geared to the efp
- I could have better spent my time making myself aware of the meeting.
- Schedule our debriefing during that, and maybe have it earlier (noon)?
- Since a lot is pre convective environment, we should come in at 9 or 10 to start.
- To be able to look at these products with other convective modes would be useful too.
- Broadcaster – recommend others to get with local wfo and get a couple hours in front of awips. Simuawips helped quite a bit.
o This is most fascinating week of science I've had in a while.
o Very much against working with just broadcasters in the hwt, found it very beneficial to be here with nws mets.
- All forecasters gained, learned from each others unique perspectives. Against segregated experiments.
