Today’s operations were quite successful. After the 1 pm briefing, our teams of two forecasters worked archive cases with PAR and CASA such that everyone has seen both data platforms in the two day period. Emphasis then shifted to the Probabilistic Warning program, beginning with an introductory presentation, then moving to the Hazardous Weather Testbed to practice the knobology of issuing warnings with WDSSII. The forecasters used data from a hail-producing thunderstorm in far southwest Texas to practice.

When operations began at 2200 UTC, operations moved up into New Mexico, within a tornado watch box where moist low level upslope, veering wind profiles, and an impinging broad jet stream supported supercell structures. Team 1 (Brad and Mark) were assigned a hail-producing storm near Los Alamos, where the SHAVE project was able to make verification calls in real time. Team 2 (Kevin/Eric) jumped onto a rightward-moving supercell in a rural area ENE from Albuquerque. The event was particularly well defined for Team 2, who followed this and a second supercell that developed in close proximity…for the entire 3.5 hour IOP. They maintained high tornado and hail probabilities with the lead supercell until it became HP, at which time the tornado probabilities decreased somewhat. The second supercell followed the path of the first, and the team had lower tornado probabilities until a well defined RFD caused probabilities to spike just at the end of operations.

Team 1 issued hail swaths on a series of storms that initiated in the foothills near Los Alamos. SHAVE verified this with marginally severe hail, and one golf ball report. After this area was overturned by a train of cells, the team shifted operations to southeast New Mexico. Much like Team 2, Team 1 was able to handle probabilistic threats for hail on two different storms, with a short-lived tornado probability on the eastern-most storm. The activity was just becoming elevated with a weakening trend when operations ended at 0130 UTC. The groups then gathered around with our two Prob-Warn cognizant scientists, Kristine and Travis, for a post-event discussion. We will take a fresh look at this event during the first part of our briefing on Thursday.

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