The introduction to the single-site AzShear product as a broadcaster was exciting. The Mississippi case study was a good one to jump in with! Stepping through the data using AzShear, vel. and the refl data for the storm was very helpful. On most frames, the centroid of the AzShear maximum (or at least the visual maximum created through the colortable, with all values above 0.1 colored white), is right where I’d put the center of circulation using velocity.
This was confirmed when the observed tornado tracks from the survey were overlayed (purple) onto the data as seen in the image above from 2325Z.
A couple things jumped out to me in this analysis of this case study:
- The AzShear values do drop a noticeable amount when the eastern Mississippi tornado lifts….which you’d expect both mathematically and conceptually given the gate to gate shear decrease as the velocity couplet deteriorates between 2329 and 2331Z after occlusion. (Note: tornado occurred with southern couplet – no tornado occurred with northern couplet strengthening between 2329 ans 2331Z)
2. In between the eastern Mississippi and western Alabama tornadoes, the AzShear values to return to +.01 and higher, prior to the second tornado occurring and velocity couplet signatures not looking as obvious as when the tornado is on the ground.
3. Is there value to seeing the data differences above .01? Colortable seems to indicate there isn’t, I’m sure published research exists regarding the importance of the values and the colortable choice.
-icafunnel