Our four visiting forecasters arrived ready to work, and the day promised a fair chance of Oklahoma-based operations. After a quick tour of the National Weather Center, the group convened in the NSSL Develoment Lab for orientation, followed by a map discussion. Participants were trained on the PAR and CASA data platforms before moving to the Hazardous Weather Testbed around 21 UTC. Software training for the WDSSII used real-time data of a supercell occurring near Altus, OK.

Kevin (WFO OUN) and Eric (WFO AFG) then jumped on at the PAR workstation to dissect the Altus supercell at long range. Brad (WFO SEA) and Mark (Environment Canada – Winnipeg) practiced WDSSII using KFDR data on the same supercell, and were on standby for possible CASA operations. By 23 UTC, though, it became clear that thunderstorms would propagate southward into northwest Texas…as stable air emanating from a second storm complex had overspread the CASA domain.

By 2330 UTC…real-time operations ended, and both groups of forecasters turned to archive events. The pace slowed down, allowing more time for discussion of data strengths and weaknesses. The PAR data, in particular, spurred some interesting ideas as to what forecasters would ideally like to receive from a radar system. The CASA participants expressed some difficulty operating in a small domain using multiple radars. They also noted that the KTLX 88D better sampled one occurrence of strong straight-line winds, simply owing to viewing angle. They were impressed, however, at the temporal and spatial resolution of the CASA data which captures many interesting storm and sub-storm scale features.

Patrick Burke (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27-30 May)