First I want to say that my overall impression of PARISE 2010 is that it was a very well-run and enjoyable exercise. Seldom have I found simulated severe weather to be so much fun. 🙂

Here’s what I observed, and remembered most:

The main benefit of the PAR was the increased temporal resolution. This was most apparent in the Tropical Storm Erin case study where small, rapidly evolving mesocyclones were sampled often enough to show the rapid increases in low level rotation. In Michigan, we often see these type of mesos in the warm season and have trouble issuing warnings with any lead time on them. One issue that should be studied from a social science perspective is how the PAR data, particularly the increased temporal resolution, will affect warning decisions by forecasters who will be seeing detail in storm evolution that they are not familiar with. Will it increase lead times and false alarms? Can we measure this? Can we sufficiently train warning forecasters on the new data before PAR is fielded? I’m also concerned that we might be looking at case studies that were not fully investigated on the ground. Is it possible that some of these storms produced hail, wind or even tornadoes that were not documented?

I noted a couple PAR data quality issues. There was one case where sidelobe contamination masked the evolution of an outflow boundary. There were a a few cases where improperly dealiased data masked a velocity couplet, but this also illustrated the importance of increased temporal resolution since one bad scan meant only a loss of two minutes in the storm’s evolution, versus an equivalent 8 or 10 minute gap in the 88D data.

I understand that the PAR “library” of events is probably rather limited at this time, but I would like to see a case study of a line of convection with short, bowing segments and small, shallow, rapidly evolving circulations, which makes up one of our most common severe weather types in Michigan, especially in the cool season.

Let me end by saying thanks to all of you who were responsible for putting together such a great experience for me as a warning forecaster, and for all your efforts in seeking and documenting our feedback!

Ernie Ostuno (Lead Forecaster, NWS Grand Rapids MI – 2010 Week 3 Evaluator)