Day 3 of the testbed offered a unique opportunity to issue real-time warnings without access to radar data. Having never been in such a situation before, it was an eye-opening experience.
Mesoanalysis showed very steep lapse rates, a long and straight hodograph, high LCLs and a fairly deep mixed layer with relatively low surface dew points. This allowed us to key in on large hail and severe winds being the primary hazards. Additionally, equilibrium levels were only around 9km so hail much larger than 1” was determined to be unlikely.
We issued our first warning upon noticing a rapid uptick in updraft intensity on OCTANE, which showed cooling cloud tops, fast motions, and strong divergence aloft. This storm was located west of Albuquerque in a sparsely populated area so it is difficult to say if the warning verified or not. Gremlin showed a similar uptick in simulated reflectivity which added weight to our decision to warn.
We issued additional warnings as the storm traveled into the Albuquerque area. A second and third cell began to strengthen as well, and two more warnings were issued with the southwest storm looking the most intense on OCTANE. Our mesoanalysis determined that the low-level cumulus field east of the northeastern cell appeared flat and was therefore stable…so weakening was anticipated as it moved off the Raton Mesa.
As expected the northeastern cell began to weaken and dissipate, which was evident on OCTANE and Gremlin. The two cells further southwest continued to look strong, and warnings were maintained into the Albuquerque metro. A hail report of 1” was received at this point on the southern margin of the city.
Lastly, lightningCast showed the northeastern cell begin to weaken before its appearance on satellite degraded significantly. This allowed us to cancel the warning early, in conjunction with noticing the downward trends in OCTANE (weakening cloud top divergence).
During the course of the event we had to keep tabs on a fictitious DSS event, and used LightningCast and its associated dashboard to determine when lightning was approaching their critical threshold (10 miles). LighgtningCast did a good job with lead time as it had 70 percent or higher before any lightning was detected nearby.
– WxAnt