The 0.5 degree SRM from JAX shows a concentrated area of wind within the cluster of storms in St. John County, FL with radar estimates of the wind near 50kts. Given the lightning jump illustrated by FED values quickly rising to ~170 flashes per 5 min, the storm is intensifying.

However, ProbSevere values are rather low with version 3 showing only 22% and version 2 showing 33%. ProbWind surprisingly was even lower with only 19%. This is a reflection of the lack of base radar data involved in the ProbSevere and ProbWind algorithms. Especially for ProbWind, base radar velocity data needs to be included in ProbWind for this product to be useful in identifying wind producing severe thunderstorms.

It would be useful to integrate base radar data from multiple single radars and combine these values into one algorithm. It may be useful to identify notable/sharp changes within velocity data between pixels which could help in picking out downdrafts.

– Fear the Shear