I want to thank Pam, Greg, Daphne, Heather, and others for giving me this great opportunity to use and evaluate PAR data.  This was an awesome experience!  I truly believe this technology will help meteorologists make better warning decisions in the near future.

The higher temporal PAR data with 40 to 80 second updates of the lowest elevation slices appear to be the biggest advantage for NWS forecasters.  This will definitely change future warning decisions.  Meteorologists will be able to detect microscale evolution of hooks, bows, and appendages to quickly pinpoint tornado spinnups and microburst winds.  The tropical case event with rapid tornadogenesis stood out as the most compelling argument for higher temporal data as the higher temporal PAR data caught each tornado occurrence, while the current much lower temporal WSR-88D data did not.   As a result of using higher temporal data, meteorologists will likely uncover more small scale phenomena such as tornadoes, especially weak ones, and microburst winds.  Not to mention, faster detection of tornadoes and damaging winds will occur as well.  These benefits will help us better understand severe local storms.

There may be a few possible downfalls with the higher temporal PAR data.  For some radar operators, the higher temporal data may be overwhelming, particularly in quickly evolving weather situations.   Also, the uncovering of more small scale phenomena may skew tornado and damaging wind climatologies upwards.  When higher temporal data first arrives to local forecast offices, false alarms may increase with more warnings issued as more phenomena get discovered.  However down the road, possibly fewer warnings and much smaller spatial areas for warnings will likely unfold, leading to better customer service.

I also enjoyed working with new and creative PAR sampling adaptive strategies.  In particular, I preferred the Oversampled_VCP_within_120km_only scanning strategy with the quickest update times of lowest elevation slices.  New scanning strategies will lead to better sampling of varying weather phenomena.  For example, perhaps in the near future, differing scanning strategies could be used for detecting mesocyclones with discrete supercells  that specialize on interrogating one or two cells compared to a wider sampling for several mesoscyclones embedded within a large scale QLCS.  This will only help the NWS further fulfill its mission of saving lives.

We need this technology now!

Michael Scotten (Lead Forecaster, NWS Memphis TN – 2010 Week 1 Evaluator)