After a long afternoon/evening of analyzing convection over the northern half of DVN’s CWA, I took a few minutes to take a look back at the NearCast theta-e and PW difference products. Starting with the PW difference product, it was good to see the increased moisture advecting into the region and it lined up exactly with where storms initiated and persisted throughout the day. It did take some interpolating since there were some blacked out spots, similar to the theta-e difference product, but both are still helpful tools to see local storm environment as well as what’s coming upstream. The same trend could be seen in the theta-e product and combining these two, it raises my confidence level in being able to use these products when performing a mesoscale analysis.

~Linda

I found it nice to change the default color scheme on the prob severe procedure. The default colors sceme doens’t provide high contract between different levels of probability of severe. I changed the color scheme to highlight higher values of prob severe.

-JB

Just wanted to point out in the above two LAPs images. The color bar associated with number of CAPE is NOT fixed. This can cause some confusion when one model run is being actively overwritten with a new one. In this case the 22Z was overwritten with the 23Z model. The color for around 3000 j/kg dropped from Yellow/Orange to Green/Yellow. I believe this may be due to lower end of the CAPE spectrum being dynamic with runs (in this case -500 switched to -1000). It may be an idea to permanently fixed color bars to keep this from becoming a problem for the non-number oriented mets. Yes, they/we do exist!

Grant H.

I issued a severe t’storm warning for Linn County thanks to the Prob of Severe/MRMS data (bottom left) product and also looking at the NearCast (top right) which showed me that the environment was unstable to keep the storm severe.  Shortly after, I looked at the MESH (top left) and it shows hail around an 1″ or so and then a spotter reported 1″ hail in Alburnett which is right near the 1″ area.  All and all these products were good and my warning was verified. ~ Vollmar

Well… unfortunately, my first crack at this tool has not gone well. When I initially pulled up the tool, it looked fine but then at some point, I had closed the Tracking Meteogram tab and could not figure out a way to pull it back up without reloading it all over again. I consulted with folks and we could not figure out how to bring a closed tab back up. It is unfortunate because I had already created a track and my points so I had to redo it.

Another problem I ran into was when the tab was opened, the meteogram would sporadically go blank/missing. Additionally, I received constant red banners that said An internal error occurred during: “Loading Tracking Meteogram.,” whether the meteogram was visible or missing. Lastly, I was testing the meteogram with KDVN 0.5 Z/V products and the Z meteogram did not line up temporally with V. Every time a new radar scan would come in, the V meteogram would update with the latest scan but the Z meteogram increased in the amount of points on the x-axis without accurately or correctly updating the time (x-axis)/max reflectivity value (y-axis).

I do like the ability to move individual points (instead of the entire line like with similar tracking tools in AWIPS-I) and it was interesting to be able to increase/decrease the circle size to capture certain storm features. I also like the capability that it has to offer to be able to see trends laid out in graph form for a particular product or set of products.

~Linda

I loaded the the base velocity product and then the meteogram program and it seemed to work well initially, but as the radar product updated the meteorgram split into two boxes, one for 8 bit and one that just indicated velocity. It later added a 3rd box that included 4-bit after the screen updated again.

-JB

Just wanted to add that on some of these storms I have been a little slower on the draw to warn. This is due to examining other new products such as LAPs CAPE and composite reflectivity MESH, while also participating in a round table discussion with some extra students on why and how they impact the mesoscale forecast, how newer dual pol products interact with the old legacy products, and examining the new prob of severe function that surrounds these storms.

MESH seems to be doing excellent here. However MESH and Prob of SVR do not capture  information of the latest lowest scan because the volume is not complete yet. It is important to use Prob of Svr as a trend tool and seeing a quick graph of Prob of Svr rising would be very helpful.  (Again a tie in to SCAN for ease of graphing would be wonderful. )

Grant H.