* Overall, another very valuable experience for me, and an important program to get feedback from forecasters during the development process. Thanks for the opportunity!
* A general suggestion is to either require participants to review materials on the products ahead of time (through recorded presentations), and then have a much shorter period the first day for SMEs to summarize and answer questions, thus allowing more time on the first day to get more familiar with products and procedures during a WES….OR, more ideally, have participants come for a two week period to get especially comfortable with the background on the products, and more time spent really working with the various products, and perhaps more opportunity for concentrated time spend really evaluating one product at a time initially. I realize though this would reduce the number of overall participants, and that’s not good either. So just something to consider perhaps. I felt that there just wasn’t quite enough time to really get to know and work with each of the products, and we were just getting there on the last day. A more focused effort on each product before given the flexibility to use any or all to help make warning decisions or raise S.A. would be better, since I felt I was trying to make sure I frequently tried to look at all of them, while at the same time trying to keep up with warning decisions using traditional products/methods too.
* Another general suggestion is to consider different interactions with the EFP side than what we did. Felt it was generally a waste of time to work with the CI group that one day I did that, and would prefer to work with the severe wx desk and get a sense for the various models and high res ensembles they were evaluating. We got to evaluate the OUN WRF, but that’s just one potential solution.
* I was most impressed with the promise of the 3DVAR products in terms of a little more of a complete picture of storm structure/intensity (4D really with tracks of max updraft and rotation very helpful for trends to stand out). These were particularly helpful in combo with traditional radar products, especially with 5 minute updates, but latency is the one concern. Not likely to make a warning decision based solely on these, but certainly adds confidence to decisions being considered with traditional (usually base radar) products. Obviously with the future potential to advect this in the future from RUC-based forecasts will add another dimension to it’s utility. Specific comments on the various products available were made via the survey forms, but here will just mention the need to improve the downdraft product (focus on lower levels), perhaps updraft too (various levels), an updraft helicity product, and then access in AWIPS to the 2D winds would be a great benefit.
* I was a little discouraged with the CI products, but do see the potential, but would like to have spent more time with these in different environments. My impression is that these will be most helpful for otherwise clear conditions with CI expected on a boundary like the dry-line, and much less useful in moist “airmass” type environments, and obviously when there is cirrus or present (these last two scenarios are fairly common here in the mid-Atlantic region). A little concerned about two different efforts/groups developing different CI products, and each seemed to have some advantages, in my limited experience that one one week I was more impressed with the UAH version, (with more detections), but need the multi-tier output I think like the UW-CIMSS version.
* OUN WRF (as other high res convective resolving models have shown) certainly has a lot to offer in terms of helping to anticipate storm mode and to some degree evolution, but not necessarily the locations or timing (timing probably worst). Still need to have a collection or ensemble of these to get a better feel for the ranges of timing and locations, but looking at the details of a single model and it’s trends can still provide some helpful info for overall S.A., and ultimately leads to quicker decisions if you are ready to anticipate certain structures/evolutions. Despite some errors in timing and placement on that last active day we were there (May 19), the signals were good enough to help prepare for some upscale evolutions during the evening, and did suggest some early convection initiation (which some other models did not have).
* Finally, love the new wdsii-nssl map web page for the MRMS products (even though we weren’t specifically evaluating those). I used these frequently in AWIPS, with some of the same advantages of the 3DVAR products such as trends, but the rapid update for these since they are multi-radar is a uniqe advantage. I’m more easily to introduce these products to my staff using the web page (http://wdsii.nssl.noaa.gov/maps), but would also like to work with ER SSD to get these into AWIPS via LDM (when I get a chance!).
* I just realized I totally left out any comments on the PGLM data!! IN part I think since I really did not get a chance to spend much time evaluating it. In one case, one of the key ground sensors actually dropped out and it gave the impression that the flash density dropped when it really didn’t. Also, for this event the NLDN CG data was intermittent so not a good chance to compare the two. Again, I think with this data set it would be especially important to focus solely on this product for most of an afternoon/evening, or during a DRT case. Still don’t have a real good feel for how the total lightning relates to the CG data we are used to tracking, and relationship to severe weather. I think it would be very important to almost spend at least one day on this one product to get some worthwhile feedback. Sorry I don’t have more on this.
Steve Keighton (Science and Operations Officer, NWS Blacksburg VA – EWP2011 Week 2 Participant)