An increase with the overshooting top product was noted in Miami and Montgomery Counties as the base velocity products intensified and severe thunderstorm warnings were issued for strong winds.  This product detection was noted after the main hail and tornado threat, though 1 inch hail was also noted in Miami County.

– JRM

I decided to check out the Laps 20Z run to see if it was performing better than the previous runs.  As you can see from the maximum base reflectivity (bottom right) it is way over done especially with storms south of Parke County.  There are no storms there on actual radar (top left).  Not confident with this product today. ~Vollmar

LAPS instability shows a detailed view of the instability to the south of I71.  Storm structure evolution indicates weakening hail and tornado threats, but a strong wind threat will continue as long as the storms have warm, unstable air to propagate towards.  LAPS stability products also show weaker stability in the washed over atmosphere where previous convection has occurred.  Training convection moving into this environment is not as likely to become severe.

– JRM

Today, none of the NearCast products are usable in or around the IND CWA other than the storms appear to be lining up in and around potential areas of maxima for instability and moisture. Therefore, a fair assessment cannot be made with the theta-e or PW difference products.

Is there a way improve these products by potentially interpolating where there is missing data? Although that may not be feasible given the rather large areas that lack data across much of the center of the country.

~Linda

I was trying to use NearCast to forecast the environment that the storm over Denver was moving into, but was a bit dissapointed in the number of holes in the data. There was some very very thin cirrus across the area noted below that may have been affecting the low level theta-e. It is a bit of a draw back how sensitive it seems to be to very thin cirrus.

-JB

A few overshooting top detections have popped up over the last hour and they correlate well with where some of the most severe weather reports have been coming in from in IND’s CWA. I originally analyzed the OTD product with IR but found it difficult to find the detections with the traditional color scheme. After attempting a few different color schemes, my curiosity led me to eventually switch over to the vis satellite imagery and overlaid the OTD on top. The loop is below.

This product does allow a mesoscale forecaster to bring attention to a certain area. However, in this type of situation where multiple cells are erupting and multiple reports coming in from all up and down the convective “line,” I haven’t found this product to be terribly helpful if in a real warning situation. As I type this, another OTD appeared near the Warren/Fountain County lines but only minutes before base reflectivity ramped up.

~Linda

As I was a bit too late to learning how to save gif images. It might be a good idea to go back and load my “Lightning Data Warning Procedure” over a WES case to get the full feel of the process.

I would also like to add that I was also a bit late for the initial SVR warning send out as AWIPS2 is a newer platform(compared to AWIPS1) and IBW warning protocol are somewhat new to me, and forced me to add time and read through the options.

Grant H.

Additional updrafts are developing to the southwest of the main Denver supercell. The probabilities of severe, still over 97%, has been expanding to the southwest to include this new activity. This is helpful to see that your warnings may need to include a larger area. This is especially true since the storm is right over the radar.

-JB

MRMS Low level rotation increased dramatically immediately following increased velocity signature appearances.  Rotation tracks also helped show increasing right deviant motion within this supercell. 

– JRM

Have just ended proof of concept experiment.

2 severe warnings and a tornado warning were issued without (total) access to radar data. I was later informed that the lightning Jump algorithm currently uses radar for the constriction of spatial area.  Apparently there will be a satellite derived algorithm eventually that will restrict space without radar at a later date. This has a potential to be a big emergency backup procedure for use when radar goes down.

The tornado warning was a lesser chance out in the middle of nowhere  for being issued as I requested internet streaming or live cam to get some kind of view underneath the storm for the warning based off of storm enviornment and Super Rapid Scan Satellite  boundary seen feeding into the storm.

Grant H.

Post Edit: Just wanted to add a picture from super rapid scan on the boundary the storm appeared to be riding.