Monday 13 May 2013 begins the second week of our three-week spring experiment of the 2013 NSSL-NWS Experimental Warning Program (EWP2013) in the NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed at the National Weather Center in Norman, OK.  There will be five primary projects geared toward WFO applications, 1) the development of “best practices” for using Multiple-Radar/Multiple-Sensor (MRMS) severe weather products in warning operations, 2) an evaluation of a dual-polarization Hail Size Discrimination Algorithm (HSDA), 3) an evaluation of model performance and forecast utility of the OUN WRF when operations are expected in the Southern Plains, 4) an evaluation of the Local Analysis Prediction System (LAPS) Space and Time Multiscale Analysis System (STMAS), and 5) an evaluation of multiple CONUS GOES-R convective applications, including pseudo-geostationary lightning mapper products when operations are expected within the Lightning Mapping Array domains (OK, w-TX, AL, DC, FL, se-TX, ne-CO).  We will also be coordinating with and evaluating the EFP’s probabilistic severe weather outlooks as guidance for our warning operations.  Operational activities will take place during the week Monday through Friday.

For the week of 13-17 May, our distinguished NWS guests will be Chris Leonardi (WFO Charleston, WV), Becca Mazur (WFO Cheyenne, WY), Ernie Ostuno (WFO Grand Rapids, MI), Joey Picca (WFO New York, NY), and Michael Scotten (WFO Norman, OK).  If you see any of these folks walking around the building with a “NOAA Spring Experiment” visitor tag, please welcome them!   The GOES-R program office, the NOAA Global Systems Divisions (GSD), and NWS WFO Huntsville’s Applications Integration Meteorologist (AIM) Program have generously provided travel stipends for our participants from NWS forecast offices nationwide.

Visiting scientists this week will include Jordan Gerth (Univ. Wisconsin), Wayne Feltz (Univ. Wisconsin), Hongli Jiang (NOAA/GSD), Amanda Terberg (NWS Air Weather Center GOES-R Liaison), and Helge Tuschy (Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), Leipzig, Germany).

Kristin Calhoun will be the weekly coordinator.  Clark Payne (WDTB) will be our “Tales from the Testbed” Webinar facilitator. Our support team also includes Darrel Kingfield, Gabe Garfield, Travis Smith, Chris Karstens, Greg Stumpf, Kiel Ortega, Karen Cooper, Lans Rothfusz, Aaron Anderson, and David Andra.
Each Friday of the experiment (10 May, 17 May, 24 May), from 1200-1240pm CDT, the WDTB will be hosting a weekly Webinar called “Tales From the Testbed”.  These will be forecaster-led, and each forecaster will summarize their biggest takeaway from their week of participation in EWP2013.  The audience is for anyone with an interest in what we are doing to improve NWS severe weather warnings.  New for EWP2013, there will be pre-specified weekly topics.  This is meant to keep the material fresh for each subsequent week, and to maintain the audience participation levels throughout the experiment.  The weekly schedule:

Week 1:  GOES-R; pGLM

Week 2:  MRMS, HSDA

Week 3:  EFP outlooks, OUN WRF, LAPS

One final post-experiment Webinar will be delivered to the National Weather Association and the Research and Innovation Transition Team (RITT) in June.  This Webinar will be a combined effort of both sides of the Hazardous Weather Testbed (EFP and EWP).

Here are several links of interest:

You can learn more about the EWP here:

http://hwt.nssl.noaa.gov/ewp/

NOAA employees can access the internal EWP2013 page with their LDAP credentials.

https://secure.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/ewp2013/

Stay tuned on the blog for more information, daily outlooks and summaries, live blogging, and end-of-week summaries!

Greg Stumpf, CIMMS/NWS-MDL, EWP2013 Operations Coordinator