Over northeastern Texas during the afternoon of June 13, 2023, an area of isentropic lift was contributing in the development of robust, severe convection over the ArkLaTex region within a highly sheared environment.

When Looking at the OCTANE Speed Sandwich, a notable gradient in color between darker blue and cyan/green can be seen within widespread stratus over northeasternl TX. This  delineated agitated stratoCu in cyan/green from flatter, more uniform stratoCu darker blue. The color change acquired by the agitated stratoCu was thought to be a result of the satellite product’s ability to detect relatively faster cloud motions of the agitated stratoCu as it grew vertically into a faster wind regime. This made it easy to find where lift was locally higher (in this case isentropic lift via low level WAA overrunning a surface boundary).

Identifying and tracking the area of lift was helpful in assessing the potential for additional convection to blossom downstream, sparking the seeds for eventual robust convection in a highly sheared environment.

Animating a loop of images, one could even see how this area of lift was propagating. Notice the subtle trend area of relatively warmer colors (cyan to green) propagating slowly to the north and east of the annotated line. Tracking the delineating line as well as the overall zone of lift itself as it moves over time could help increase a forecaster’s confidence on whether additional convection associated with this forcing mechanism would remain possible or become unlikely, proving OCTANE can be a useful tool in the Mesoanalyst’s tool belt.

Comparing OCTANE Speed Sandwich to the popular Day Cloud Phase RGB, OCTANE appeared to highlight the area of lift more easily than Day Cloud Phase RGB, and to a relatively high degree of spatial detail.

-OSMBLSN