Our visiting forecasters/scientists arrived at the National Weather Center just before 1 pm.  This week we have Rob Handel from the Peachtree City, Georgia, NWS Forecast Office, Matthew Kramar from the Sterling, Virginia, Office, Mike Vescio from the Pendelton, Oregon, Office, and Les Lemon from the NWS Warning Decision Training Branch.

The group was met today with dry and sunny air, clear blue skies, and little prospect for thunderstorms this week in a 200 mile radius from Norman, OK.  Live operations are unlikely in the CASA and PAR networks, but the group will participate in a variety of warning simulations using archived data from these networks.  The outlook is similar for the LMA testbeds.  An elongated upper ridge will build from Oklahoma toward the Washington D.C. area testbed, keeping the weather dry there.  A broad upper level circulation developing in the eastern Gulf will remain stationary or retrograde slightly, but the chance of significant thunderstorms in the Huntsville, Alabama, LMA testbed is low.  LMA research will likely be based in archived data this week.

Multi-Radar, Multi-Sensor (MRMS) warning operations, however, may be supported in real time from any WSR-88D in the continental U.S.  Currently, the most likely opportunities for real-time MRMS operations appear to be Tuesday evening in Montana, and either Wednesday or Thursday evening in the central High Plains, just east of the Colorado and Wyoming front range.  Below is the probabilistic outlook for severe thunderstorms on Tuesday, forecast by the Storm Prediction Center:

Patrick Burke (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 18-22 May 2009)