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SteveH is adding a tornado threat based on increasingly favorable environment (backed winds, better moisture, and the southern end of the cell taking on supercell properties (WER, notch, low-level meso).
Travis Smith (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 19-23 May)
SteveH is letting his two northernmost storms keep low probabilities in case they re-intensify. Southern storm is still going strong.
Travis Smith (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 19-23 May)
SteveH has some large wind threat areas (some with high probabilities), based on the already-strong synoptic winds combined with evaporatively-driven downdrafts. “Any 50 dBZ core has the possibility of producing strong winds.” Currently most concerned with the storm to the SW of KGLD.
Travis Smith (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 19-23 May)
SteveR/Jonathan would like some way to see if the polygons have been saved while they are waiting for the threats to be processed, as well as a way to quickly see a list of current probabilities for each threat.
KGLD needs to change PRF!
Travis Smith (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 19-23 May)
SteveH is up to 3 storms now. Comment: need to have a better way to show that you are looking at old data. he may have a jump in his threat areas because he updated on old data.
Travis Smith (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 19-23 May)
SteveR and Jonathan just had a problem with the interface and accidentally updated their wind info with their hail probabilities. So, they deleted the incorrect info and are starting over.
Travis Smith (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 19-23 May)
SteveH is working two storms in NE CO by himself, using two machines – one with 2D2 and one with WDSS-II.
Primarily looks like hail and wind threat on both.
Travis Smith (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 19-23 May)
Today we anticipate operations in an SPC “slight risk” area in NE Colordado / SE Wyoming. The outlook reads:
CONCERNING THE SEVERE POTENTIAL…RUC DATA SHOWS THE STRONGEST VERTICAL SHEAR ACROSS WY AND NE CO WITH 0-6 KM SHEAR VALUES IN THE 40 TO 55 KT RANGE. AS INSTABILITY CONTINUES TO INCREASE…THE SHEAR SHOULD SUPPORT ISOLATED SUPERCELL DEVELOPMENT. STEEP MID-LEVEL LAPSE RATES SHOULD FAVOR A THREAT FOR LARGE HAIL. ALTHOUGH LARGE HAIL WILL BE THE GREATEST THREAT…THE RELATIVELY DRY BOUNDARY LAYER WITH TEMPS IN THE 70S F AND SFC DEWPOINTS IN THE 40S F MAY LOCALLY ENHANCE DOWNDRAFTS FOR A DAMAGING WIND THREAT.
The IOP should begin at 6pm CDT, with PAR and CASA playback cases taking up the bulk of the afternoon.
Travis Smith (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 19-23 May)
Wrapped up operations at 0030 UTC.
Ryan/SteveR started off with hail threats — looks like one “threat area” equals 4 NWS warnings art one point. A lot of the NWS warnings are county-shaped. Had a couple of tornado threat areas with low probabilities that matched a NWS tornado warning.
SteveH/Dave/Jonathan — started drawing big polygons and then got more comfortable with the software and began narrowing down their threat area. They ended up with six threat areas. SteveH thinks the display needs some color changes — threat areas overlay the data. Needs to be a contour instead of a solid block of color. Could have had better continuity. Jonathan believes the workload was too heavy to keep up with radar analysis.
SteveR wonders about data management with PAR and CASA data rates.
SteveH – current NWS warnings at his office are separated by threat type (sectorized).
Jonathan – combining threat types into a single warning (Tornado and Severe Thunderstorm) is easier to manage.
Ryan – liked the display of current hazards separated by type. Had to be more precise with updates to keep the storm in the current threat area polygon.
SteveR – felt more like a grid manager than a meteorologist making scientific decisions.
Ryan – would like storm motion first guess in the polygon.
SteveR – feels as fatigued now as in a real warning situation, even though it is just an experiment. SteveH nods in agreement.
Greg says what if you could just add a couple of features to WarnGen to include the probability and motion uncertainty? SteveR likes the idea.
SteveH would like to be forced to re-issue a warning every 20 minutes.
Ryan / SteveR believe that the limitations in the threat areas are primarily caused by the software and not in the science.
Mike M. would be comfortable with algorithm guidance providing a first guess for tornadoes (based on meso location) and hail. Greg would not automate the tornado threat.
Ryan thinks it might be good to combine the threats into a general “probability of severe weather” as a first step instead of Tornado/Wind/Hail.
The discussion wandered into the realm of forecaster workload across their entire spectrum of duties and wrapped up.
Travis Smith (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 19-23 May)
Steve H., Dave, and Jonathan had a lost hail contour around this time. It’s a known bug with the software.
Also, they are working six threats at the current time, and think that the management of the threat areas needs more automation (see previous entry).
Travis Smith (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 19-23 May)
