The CASA group is intently analyzing data, and will run up to 9 pm.  The PAR group is providing feedback verbally to the facilitators, and filling out a case study survey.  There will not be time for an end of day debrief, but we plan to hold more discussion at the beginning of the 1 pm briefing on Wednesday.  For now, some of the comments I’m overhearing from PAR include: for storms at long range, please experiment with elevation angles lower than 0.5 degrees; forecasters like the beam overlapping in the horizontal and vertical; forecasters would like to see the reflectivity color curves in WDSS-II display more noticeable breaks at 50 and 60 dbZ for hail threat.

Patrick Burke (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 18-22 May 2009)

In viewing the archived CASA data, Rob is bothered by the sector scans from the individual radars at certain elevation angles.  He finds it difficult to trust the data near the sector edges because we are taught to look for dealiasing failures, etc., when traditional radar shows sharp cutoffs.  Additionally, Rob and Mike would prefer to see the entire 360 deg scan at all elevation angles.  They would be willing to accept slightly slower updates in favor of 360 deg scans.

Patrick Burke (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 18-22 May 2009)

The strong storm in the Glasgow area weakened when it became elevated north of the warm front.  Other cells tried to initiate along an arcing outflow boundary southeast of the original storm.  These new cells were never a threat to produce severe weather.  Rather than chasing new mediocre cells in western and central Montana, we made the decision to end the IOP, and return to the more fruitful archive cases.

Patrick Burke (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 18-22 May 2009)

We’ve reinitialized in the Glasgow, MT, area, as of 6 PM CDT.  A strong thunderstorm coming out of the higher terrain to the west… is now interacting with a warm front oreinted NW-SE across Montana.  The initial cell has shown a weakening trend, but there are other cells coming up along the flanking line…and in the vicinity of the front.  If these cells become potentially severe, we will stick with this IOP.  Otherwise, we may choose to switch to PAR and CASA archive if the Montana activity hasn’t shown us anything by 7 PM.

Patrick Burke (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 18-22 May 2009)

Technical difficulties have slowed our progress this afternoon.  One team, Matthew and Mike, were able to view data from Salt Lake City in both D2D and Google Earth.  The Warngen functionality was compromised, though, and the group did not feel the convection warranted warnings.  They would have issued special weather statements, if possible.  The second group, Rob and Les, did not have a functioning data feed, so instead carried on a fruitful conversation with a group conducting satellite-based research.  We are now taking a dinner break while Kevin works to correct the technical problems.  Hopefully when we return there will be a window of opportunity in which to issue warnings over the Glasgow or Billings, MT, area.  If not, we will return to archive cases of PAR and CASA data.

Patrick Burke (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 18-22 May 2009)

During the outlook briefing, Mike Vescio noted that our Southeast Montana target is in an area where radar coverage is either poor or non-existent.  The Utah/Idaho/Wyoming target is also in a region of relatively sparse coverage affected by beam blocking.  This may not be a detriment to the experiment, however.  Kiel Ortega points out that one of the expected strengths of Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor output should be to more easily facilitate severe weather warnings in areas like the Intermountain West, where forecasters need to make the most of every piece of data possible.

Patrick Burke (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 18-22 May 2009)

Rob and Mike note that the PAR data is giving them more lead time on severe weather signatures compared to the 88D (KTLX, which they are viewing side by side with PAR).  Mike says, “We’re ahead of the game.”  And when asked if the PAR data is bombarding them perhaps too quickly, they say, “No!”  They wouldn’t mind if it came in even faster.

Patrick Burke (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 18-22 May 2009)

The CASA team first familiarized themselves on visualizing and navigating the data with one brief case study.  Matthew noted that in the CASA data he is seeing familiar storm-scale processes happening at sub-storm scales of time and space.  They are now moving on to a displaced real-time archive case in which they will issue mock warnings.  The team read over the available environmental data to great length.  They appreciate this type of data in lieu of a traditional shift briefing.  They suggest that in addition to seeing a central Oklahoma upper air sounding, they would also like to see soundings from the surrounding area, numerical measures of severe weather parameters on those soundings, and an analyzed surface map.

Patrick Burke (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 18-22 May 2009)