One of the other groups had a good suggestion of raising the Dangerous Lightning Alert custom values to 50/75/100 flashes per minute. That increase was significantly larger than the default values and based off some of the situations we have seen over the SW OUN cwa, that may not have been high enough. This image below (taken around 2143Z) shows just the 75/100 flash alerts and those are too overwhelming with the amount of polygons.

-SRF

Saw this interesting situation today and I’m not sure if it is an issue. There were several instances in a row where lightning cells were within another lightning cells. I have included an animation below (click to view), but I would have thought they should have been combined and lead to a much higher lightning rate and in turn a alert.

Thought I would do a quick post on the lightning data from a warned storm in the SW part of OUN area. Earlier, there were a few cell mergers that caused some jumps on the time series (right around 2020Z on the image below), but otherwise there was a steady rise in the total lightning data, with a few smaller jumps as it reached its peak.

The second image has the two main lightning cells within the warning, but you can see one smaller cell that was seperated out at that time before quickly merging back into the larger cell.

-SRF

Amongst a mess of convection in the Lubbock CWA, some of the new tools definitely help focus your attention on certain cells.

Just looking at the radar data, not much stands out. However, the lightning jump and prob severe (86%) definitely catch your attention.

At 2016Z, the lightning density peaked at 81, the highest I’ve seen so far.

By this time the prob severe was up to 94%. Based on radar data the storm looked like it intensified for a short time and was definitely stronger than other cells in the CWA. Nothing was reported with it (so far). This is a good case for using these tools for situational awareness, and perhaps giving you longer lead time on certain cells within a mult-cell cluster or line of convection.

-V. Darkbloom

The predominant scenario for convection across the central/northern LUB CWA is the continued slow movement of the MCS. A weak outflow/remnant boundary exists west and south of the slowly easterly moving MCS that has acted as a trigger from some storms to fire as the mean southerly flow advects a shallow cumulus field toward the MCS. The dryline remains just west of the CWA and may be a focus for storms later this afternoon.

The CI field below continues to possess high percentages as it advects towards the outflow/remnant boundary. Overall it has been a good situational awareness aid. The example below shows a small cluster of cumulus with higher percentages near Girard, TX, at 2007Z that crossed the outflow boundary and quickly ramped up with increasing reflectivity values well above 35 dBZ (images from 2003 to 2011Z).

Brick Tamland

Have issued another warning to the northeast of the initial warning. The southeast storm is the strongest with a large hail core aloft, but lightning cell data shows lower lightning than the storm to the northwest that is starting to merge with the existing line. Opted to keep the warning farther to the northwest from the strongest cell due to the amount of lightning (and a 100 flash/min alert).

-SRF

Looking at prob severe and the lightning jump associated with a particularly nasty looking storm.

A severe thunderstorm warning was issued at 1932Z. No reports yet.

-V. Darkbloom

Rapidly intensifying storms entering the OUN cwa where picked up well on ProbSevere, with them quickly rising to 90%. Based of the reflectivity cores aloft, broad rotation, and the rapid increase in ProbSevere, have issued warnings for multiple storms in the SW corner of the cwa (at 1922 and 1924Z).

While the ProbSevere and cores aloft support the warnings, lightning data has been struggling so far with the peak lightning cell data only around the mid 20s.

Finally, here is a look at the time series for the strongest cell, with a few jumps but overall limited flash amounts.

Will be monitoring the lightning trends and see if the data catches up with the radar and ProbSevere appearance.

-SRF

After setting up the custom Thunderstorm Alerts (75/min and 100/min), there were a couple areas of focus on the 100/min alerts (to the west-southwest and southwest of KTLX).

But when comparing to the ProbSevere data, we are seeing different representations on the strength of the storms. The storm to the WSW only had a ProbSevere around 11% (that had the greatest flash rate around 149 per min), while the storm to the SW had a ProbSevere of 88%, but a weaker flash rate (87 per min).

These differences highlights the need for analyzing multiple data sources and comparing to radar.

-SRF

This morning iin the TX panhandle there was an existing west-east line of thunderstorms stretched across the northern portion of the LBB CWA. A warm front was aligned SW-NE across the AMA CWA, with a dryline across the southern panhandle and a nice dryline bulge south of the CWA.

CI has tended to be more of a “now”cast as opposed to a forecast.

By the time the CI was high, convection was already ongoing in that area. More frequent satellite data would definitely help in these rapid development situations!