Week two allowed us to “spread our wings” a little, in that we operated in the DC domain some, and we made use of the 19 May 2010 Displaced Real Time case.   Participants for this week were:

Kevin Brown (OUN), Kevin Donofrio (PQR), Bill Goodman (OKX), Steve Keighton (RNK), and Jessica Schultz (ROC)

We started off Monday as usual with training, however we opted to abbreviate the training and attempt to get our participants familiar with the data by having them jump into the DRT case Monday afternoon.  This appeared to have some positive affects in getting the forecasters familiar with the set up as well as getting a first look at the data.  Though I think we staved off the “death by powerpoint” issue somewhat, there still seemed to be less enthusiasm to this approach than I anticipated.

Another adjustment this week (compared to week 1) was to try and get the forecasters more involved with the EFP CI desk after getting their AFD completed for the EWP.  We tried to have the EWP forecasters inteact with the EFP CI group by considering a “second CI target”.  While this was a good idea, it is unclear quite how successfully the EWP personnel were in participating in the discussion and selection process.

On Tuesday, our AFD was initially focused on the central plains area, but shifted their guidance to the DEL-MAR-VA region.  Warning operations started off in that area on marginally severe storms.  With the remaining time, we switched to eastern CO to warn on tornadic supercells there.

Wednesday appeared to be a potentially active day for the OK domain if storms could fire.   The OUN WRF painted a really interesting scenario with a supercell very near Oklahoma City.  The DEL-MAR-VA area was again weakly severe, but we opted to use this day to monitor the CI products.  After waiting most of the day, and after a visit by NWS OS&T director Don Berchoff, we returned operations to Eastern CO again.

For Thursday’s activities, we focused again on the OK domain – and this time we had convection!  Storms fired early in SW OK.  We sectorized on these storms immediately (forgoing the EFP CI collaboration).  About a third of the way through the operations period, we shifted to the DDC/ICT/UEX domain as it appeared these storms would be more severe than the OK storms were at the time.  Before long, we switched back to the OUN storms and that’s how we finished.

The following are some highlights from the weekly wrap-up discussion:

CI

Forecasters seemed to like the non-binary CI products.  Though the UAH CI product was understood, users appreciated the level of uncertainty afforded by the CIMSS products.

UAH Sat Cast, looking for CI behind cirrus near dryline, never detected anything, which is good, no false alarms.  Positive null detection

Ice masking to aid in sanity check was useful and appreciated.

NEARCAST products seemed not much different that looking at a RUC theta-E output for a few hours, but with advantage that it is based on observations and advected where you might not have the observations later.

pGLM

There was more discussion/comments on the pGLM product throughout the week than on the last day.  Though the storms in the DEL-MAR-VA area weren’t terribly severe when we were observing them, the pGLM added some additional level of confidence in (non) severity.

The THU case was our best bet for looking at the pGLM, despite a LMA sensor/comms failure that adversely impacted the network for a period late in the operations period.

There was a request for to include what is known so far wrt to total lightning behavior.  Participants requested more WES style cases.  There was also a request for a CG/IC ratio product.

Lightning trend and jump information remains a hot topic, in that many are interested, but we want to make sure we don’t get the “cart before the horse” and verify any claims with solid research.

OUN WRF

On THU, in particular, OUN WRF gave good indication of storm morphology / mode.  Was the only modle that depicted te storms in SW OK and maintaining them.

There was a recommendation for improved/new product combination available to the forecasters.  The SimRef/Updraft Helicity/Vert. Int. Graupel is already being implemented after week 2.

Need to be wary about sharing outside the WFO (eg. EM community) for concerns of latching on to an incorrect solution.  Sometimes it “almost looks too real”.

Time ensemble output/display is desired (something that Sterling does).

3DVAR

Suggestion to break up Updraft/Downdraft composites like the vorticity layer composites (0-3,3-7, total).  Also consider Storm Relative Depth layers.

Request for a SRH product.

Placement of updraft seemed incorrect at times – especially with VA storms, but even with OK storms at times – even when compared to same-latency Sim Ref.

Think the 3DVAR products have a lot of potential to help with SA and add confidence, to help uncertainty with sampling at far ranges or over cone-of-silence.  Swaths (trends) also very helpful.

2D wind vectors would be great to have in AWIPS if possible.  Perhaps FSI, or using the “all-millibars” in the VB.

Logistics/Open Suggestions/MRMS

MRMS op system needs diagnostic tools, to show how many radars and elevation scans go into a grid point (or like CI ice-mask – not 100% optimal), and if it is less than 100% (radar outage), or radars running hot/cold.  Need diagnostic tools to determine if system is not running optimally.

Feels like, “do what you want to”, “look at everything”, “falling into comfort zone”.  Maybe the pairs of forecaster can do traditional warning, and other person looks at the experimental products.  At least one person is focused on that particular product.

We again hear the suggestion of a multi-week setup.  We are certainly not opposed to this, though NWS logistics would be a tough hurdle to overcome.

Hearing greater support (as well as from Week 3) for requiring future participants to complete training prior to arriving.  (powerpoints, articulate, WES cases).  This would help us gain “Monday” as an operational day.

Respectfully Submitted:

-kevin manross :: 2011 EWP Week 2 Weekly Coordinator