From an email conversation:

Kristen Schuler (CWSU, Kansas City, MO) writes:

“So right now the cloud top cooling and sat cast products are a great way to predict severe storms /areas of severe hail potential. It would be nice to have a product that forecasts echo tops exceeding FL400…something that poses a significant impact to aviation. Is that possible? What are your thoughts?”

Wayne Feltz (UW-CIMSS, Madison, WI) replies:

“Yes, we received this same feedback from another CWSU forecaster out of Houston.  I have attached a paper (currently in review with major revisions so it should be published soon) where this relationship has already been established for 18, 30, and 50 dBZ echo top heights.  I think we can do more to provide better correlation between expect echo top height and CTCR.  We also want to compare CTCR and cloud top growth (feet or meters per 15 minutes) to see how this relationship fares.

“The relationship in paper is within figure 7.  We plan on making a separate CTC training module but with a focus on aviation meteorologist decision support issues rather than severe thunderstorm warning focus.”

Greg Stumpf, EWP2012 Operations Coordinator