It was interesting when comparing the Warning side of the house today versus the DSS side. When we (Cumulus and Kadic) were discussing this and picked two of the tools we used the most, there were similarities and differences:
For Warning Ops: OCTANE and LightningCast
OCTANE proved very useful in interrogating convection. LightningCast was also a helpful diagnostic tool in highlighting the potential for and track of intense convection when used with ProbSevere.
OCTANE:
Here’s a look at 2 particular instances from OCTANE:
A combination of cloud top cooling in OCTANE and subsequent divergence aloft was a helpful clue in assessing the potential of a storm that was distant from the radar. It was caught a little later in analysis, but OCTANE proved helpful in diagnosing the storm and deciding to pull the trigger.
This next instance was a warning that was issued solely using OCTANE and seeing how well it lined up with radar. The warning targeted the center of where the maximum storm top divergence was taking place, and then stretched down towards the south to account for parallax. The warning decision was made for the impressive cloud top cooling and pronounced divergence that appeared in the scans leading up to the warning. The panel on the top left shows the OCTANE speed, and it transitioned to a blue color leading up to the event.
LightningCast and Radar:
Below is the example of what MRMS looked like the moment DMXSVR005 was issued solely based on OCTANE. Much of the SVR encompassed the highest LightningCast values with a probability of 10 flashes of 70% in yellow and the various ProbSevere contours. Again, this highlights how useful these tools can be in performing storm interrogation. However, when thunderstorms are numerous, this may be a lot to run through. They are definitely useful tools in the tool belt, though.
For DSS: LightingCast (especially the Dashboard) and GREMLIN/GLM.
– LightingCast: I REALLY like the form and Dashboard. It helps focus on the DSS site specifically and organizes the data really well to where I would feel comfortable explaining/showing an EM the graph of lightning probabilities. Honestly, I could bring this back to my home WFO right now and use this for DSS events this summer. A couple things that could be added to make it even more awesome: adding more options for ranges (right now there is only 10 miles, perhaps adding 15 and/or 20 miles). Folks could then choose which to display in the graph. The other thing (fairly minor), perhaps reversing the size of the bubbles for the GLM data (smaller range, smaller bubble). But, this is personal preference – maybe if this could be customized by the user like the colors?
– GREMLIN/GLM: GREMLIN followed the storms a lot better today (seems to do better with more intense storms versus run of the mill/sub-severe ones). I used a two panel display with GREMLIN on the left and MRMS on the right with GLM and LightningCast and compared the two. I used time of arrival for the storms to 10 miles outside the DSS event and also at the site itself. GREMLIN was able to keep up with MRMS really well! I am becoming more and more convinced that this could be a really great product to help if a radar goes down or there is a radar hole (in data).
Overall, it seems as though OCTANE was used more for warning ops versus DSS, but LightningCast was used by both the warning operator and DSS forecaster.
Forecasters Cumulus and Kadic