This is the eve of our first operational “shakedown” day for the EWP 2008 Spring Experiment. Are we ready? Heck no! But we’re pretty close. This is the reason for the shakedown week – to iron out any remaining kinks in the system. It also our buffer week to get some of our remaining tasks completed, like the individual experiment plans, and our ideas on how we are going to conduct our daily map discussions and post-event debriefings. The equipment in the HWT operations area is just about ready to go, and most of the mess is finally cleaned up. This is the very first year we are attempting something on this scale, so we feel it will be a work-in-progress, with hopefully much of the work completed by the end of this week.

So, what does the weather look like for the week? A nice progressive trough will move across the nation’s mid-section. Gulf moisture is also starting to make an impressive return Sunday night, and should be nicely in place for several events this week. Monday may see the potential for storms in OK/KS/MO, with a potential sleeper event for Central or North-Central Oklahoma. Could it be a PAR/CASA day, or a gridded probabilistic warning day? We’ll know for sure after our first daily meeting/map discussion tomorrow.

Greg Stumpf (EWP Operations Coordinator)