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Tonight is a practice IOP. Several AWIPS technical issues need to be worked out, but forecasters were able to view all the data sources. Darren and David are working with the GOES-R personnel, while Ken and Matt are issuing warnings based on MR/MS and base data in AWIPS. IOP began at 730pm and ended at 830pm.
Very good discussion on the way forecasters issue warnings ensured. Details to follow.
Travis Smith (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 17-21 May 2010)
Today we start week 6 of the 2010 EWP. Our visitors are David Blanchard (Flagstaff, AZ), Matt Kramar (Sterling, VA), Ken Pomeroy (Western Region HQ, Salt Lake City, UT), and Darren Van Cleave (Rapid City, SD).
First day of operations for MR/MS and GOES-R today. We will be focusing on the area primarily large hail threat in SE New Mexico (the same area that Vortex2 is operating today). MUCAPE is estimated at 4000 J/kg in that area, with upslope flow and 25 kts at 500 mb and a boundary providing a small chance of tornadoes as well (2% on SPC outlook).
Briefings and training will take up the afternoon, and a short IOP will start at 6:30 today.
Travis Smith (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 17-21 May 2010)
Pete was working the MR/MS data set for a hail and wind event along a front in Nebraska.
He issued several warnings after looking at the environment, AWIPS all-tilts, AzShear, MESH. He mentioned that all of the products were basically pointing at large hail — it didn’t matter so much in this case which product you looked at because they all gave the same guidance. He would be very interested in seeing how the MR/MS products perform on marginal events, or widespread events (more than just a couple of storms) that are more difficult warning decision-making challenges.
Pete has also observed in the past that most of the proxies for hail that are used operationally (and this could be extended to MESH as well) tend to underestimate hail size when the storm-relative flow is relativeley weak (15 kts, or no meso) and storms are vertically stacked due to no separation of hydrometeors.
Travis Smith (Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor PI)
Wrapped up around 8pm, with brief discussion and survey. Major comments were (again) that the MESH tracks were very ueful in helping orient the warning polygons that they issued. The Motley county (lead supercell) had a stronger signature than the one that actually produced a tornado to its west. AzShear values were above .024 for the non-producing storm while the others were about half of that.
Forecaster favorite products this evening were:
Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 Apr – 1 May 2009)
Working on one machine, now. Forecasters alternated dinner breaks, and warning ops continue unbroken. Live video showing a broad rain-free base on the storm of interest in Floyd / Motley counties.
Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 Apr – 1 May 2009)
Both machines are having problems with AWIPS, so we are rebooting and possibly takign a dinner break for the time being.
Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 Apr – 1 May 2009)
Both forecasters have commented independently that there needs to be a way to overlay the radial velocity from a single radar with the Rotation Tracks product. (This is possible in WDSSII’s wg display, but is a limitation of AWIPS).
MESH values seem to match very well with reports, except for one baseball reports that may have been associated with a left-mover.
Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 Apr – 1 May 2009)
Tornado Warning for Motley County based on increasing azimuthal shear trend and possible boundary interaction.
Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 Apr – 1 May 2009)
Strong convergent anti-cyclonic circulation on a storm (need anti-cyclonic rotation tracks!)
MESH of 1 inch produced 1 inch hail report. Forecasters are using Rotation Tracks (ML and LL), MESH tracks, and Height of 50 dBZ above -20C fields extensively along side single-radar data.
Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 Apr – 1 May 2009)
