Noticed that the NMDA was glitching out in some of the upper levels of distant storms. Ironically, despite all the false detections, it didn’t identify some of the actual rotations, distant or within the CWA that were ongoing.
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Author: Justin
Web ProbSevere Table Cutoff
A small cosmetic issue, but I noticed that the Table Display from ProbSevere gets cutoff on the top row, and covers the axis information on the last row. Also had some difficulty zooming out at times, but may have fixed the issue but unselecting option to synchronize ranges.
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Merged AZShear picking up on the low-level rotation nicely!
(Don’t know why images are being weird here)
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TPW Differences Along Dryline
The CIRA Merged TPW and All Sky LAP in the TX panhandle show some differences in the vicinity of the dryline at 19 UTC on 7 May. This is a cloudy region so the retrievals are either GFS (All Sky LAP) or advected polar microwave (Merged TPW), The All Sky LAP TPW shows a moist panhandle, with values in green / yellow (1″ or above). The Merged TPW indicates lower values in green / purple, or about 0.7″. Surface dewpoints range from 59-65 F, indicating moist air ahead of the dryline.
Surface GPS observations from Suominet at three TX stations in the panhandle (Amarillo – 1.0″, Borger – 1.0″, and Canadian – 1.1″) lean closer to the All Sky LAP analysis. An hypothesis for the Merged TPW being low is dry retrievals from higher terrain to the west being advected into the moist sector.
JohnF
19Z NUCAPS Comparison with METAR at LUB
Modified NUCAPS soundings taken at 19Z became available in AWIPS and was noticed around 2030 UTC. The One taken near Lubbock was flagged as a Successful. I wanted to compare the NUCAPS sounding withe the nearby 19Z METAR observation and found the METAR measured temp/dew observations of 77/61 where the NUCAPS sounding at the same time had surface measurement of 69/58. The difference between the surface temperature observations for a modified sounding was concerning.
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ProbSevere Progression with intensifying storm
I like seeing the progression of the storm on the ProbSevere page, showing the trends of developing convection. You can see how the increases of ProbHail and ProbWind parallel certain parameters like MESH, VIL, and Flash Rate parameters. It’s also interesting to see what’s not being utilized or loaded into the page such as Sat Growth Rate.
With some MRMS data being loaded into the ProbSVR model, one possible addition to the parameters could be Vertically Integrated Ice (VII) vs VIL. Have found in operations to be a very good indication for strong updrafts above the FZL. Hail and Wet Downbursts have been correlated with very high values of VII (above 25-50 kg*m^-2).
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Dryline Progression with AllSkyLAP
Noticed a glitchy progression in the AllSkyLAPs 900mb PWATs. Believe this might be from an updating GFS guidance, but this also occurred at a time when the areas west of the LUB CWA were transitioning from about half Cloudy, half GFS to mostly GFS. However, the updated location of the dryline was a closer approximation of the location of the dryline at the given time.
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ProbHail Detection shows increased accuracy over MRMS MESH
LSRs showed 1.5″ hail fell in Dumas, TX. Just beforehand ProbHail increased to 83% just beforehand. MRMS showed some spotty 1+” calculations but only to the SW of Dumas. Flash Rate also showed an increase just before the Severe Hail fell in Dumas.
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Early Detection of Convection w/GLM
Impressed by the early convective detection by GLM in this case. The image below was in real time and you can see the GLM Minimum Flash Area and Flash Extent Density is already lighting up in Oldham County in the AMA CWA. However, the 1-minute MESO GOES-16 data barely had cooling cloud tops being detected and there was no detection of precip at that location on MRMS yet (actual first time of detection was 2-minutes sooner than picture below where MRMS has no detection of radar echoes).
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Differences in TPW and LAP in pre-storm environment over AMA
Noticed a major difference in the pre-storm environment at 17Z, just before convective initiation, between the TPW and LAPS products Total Precipitable Water Products. AllSkyLAP Total Precipitable H20 was observing ~1.25″ at 17Z whereas the Avd. Blended TPW observed ~0.7″ at 17Z. A special 17Z sounding observed 0.9″. While AllSkyLAP ‘looked’ more realistic from a mesoanalysis standpoint, the sounding was closer to the Adv. Blended TPW product. Would like to see more sounding verification between the 2 products.
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