EWP Blog – Page 314 – Spring Experiments & Beyond

Live Blog – 4 June 2009 (6:56 pm)

Posted in Live Blogs on June 4, 2009 by Liz Quoetone.

Musical CWAs. Veronica and Bill have now killed storm in BOU CWA. They are starting up as CYS. Both groups now CYS. Storms in CYS CWA were on the way out but now new storms just going up NW of Cheyenne are looking good. Vortex2 is now heading for that same area.

Liz Quoetone and Paul Schlatter (EWP Weekly Coordinators, 1-5 June 2009)

Live Blog – 4 June 2009 (6:45 pm)

Posted in Live Blogs on June 4, 2009 by Liz Quoetone.

Bill and Veronica switch from Pueblo to Boulder. They felt storm overn southern part of county was weakening and was also moving out of the domain. V2 reporting storm north of Burns WY has small wall cloud and brief landspout.

Liz Quoetone and Paul Schlatter (EWP Weekly Coordinators, 1-5 June 2009)

Live Blog – 4 June 2009 (5:25 pm)

Posted in Live Blogs on June 4, 2009 by Liz Quoetone.

Thunderstorms have fired along the front range. We have groups sectorized to cover 2 CWAs. Veronica and Bill are WFO Pueblo. Pete and guest LMA expert turned warning forecaster Geoff are WFO CYS. VORTEX 2 is positioning to intersect the WY storms. Good luck to all!

Liz Quoetone and Paul Schlatter (EWP Weekly Coordinators, 1-5 June 2009)

Outlook – 4 June 2009

Posted in Outlooks on June 4, 2009 by Paul Schlatter.

Running PAR/CASA archive cases for the next 1-2 hours. Will attempt to run IOP at 4 PM for the BOU CWA. Good hodographs (very straight lines) could mean splitting storms with 40 kts 0-6 km shear and 1000-1500 J/kg CAPE. No CIN to speak of. Need to get further heating N of the Palmer Divide and with the low clouds burning off this should happen by 4 PM. Radars running at KFTG, KPUX, KGLD, and KCYS. VORTEX 2 is also in the area east of Denver.

Liz Quoetone and Paul Schlatter (EWP Weekly Coordinators, 1-5 June 2009)

Summary – 3 June 2009

Posted in Daily Summaries on June 4, 2009 by Paul Schlatter.

At the start of the 1 PM meeting on 6/4/2009, the group summarized yesterdays activities. We did an LMA IOP for LWX/AKQ, then PAR and CASA archived events.

LMA IOP

We re-examined the 3 storms around 1950 that had varying LMA attributes vs. CG attributes. In particular one storm that looked impressive on radar had very high amounts of CGs, but LMA didn’t show much.
Need to be able to explain why the storm didn’t show up in LMA yet had high CG rates and good reflectivity characteristics aloft, because this particular storm would be an example of when the LMA doesn’t not perform as expected, and in a way detrimental to storm interrogation.
MESH didn’t agree with the VIL, LSRs, Z at -20C…seemed to overestimate the hail in the LWX CWA
LMA helped get a warning out quicker than normally would b/c they were able to monitor trends in the LMA, looking for a rapid increase in flash rates
For warning decisions, Bill/Veronica used VIL, Z at -20 C, MESH, and was looking for things to agree with each other and with the LSRs they were getting
For warning decisions, Pete/Jenni focused more on LMA rather than warning decision making.
Low values in LMA b/c of temporal smoothing ocurred which made things hard to interpret
LMA didn’t respond the same way that CG rates do as the storm intensifies and grows in vertical depth.

PAR

Pete very excited about using PAR for tropical supercells
TS Erin case had very clear signatures, liked the time resolution of the data and watching the evolution of the convergence in low levels in the hook echo region. Issued a warning when convergence increased, knowing that an increase in rotation was likely to follow. Admittedly the convergence signatures in tropical environments have a high FAR.
See the same things with the 88D given similar resolutions, you just see them a few minutes sooner
Yes, warnings could come out a few minutes earlier…but also can see a situation arise when they wait for another scan…60 sec…then wait another…then another since it’s only 60 sec. Would be interesting to do a study with experienced forecasters using PAR data to see how they react to the vast amounts of data rapidly updating in a warning environment.

CASA

showed reflectivity do-nut which the 88D did not…also was able to see the rotation intensification better than with the 88D. (May 2007 event)
CASA had far better location of the tornado relative to the 88D. 1500 feet (CASA) vs 2200 feet (88D)
Good: see things faster and better low level coverage, could see things you wouldn’t normally see with the 88D, especially with the varying viewing angles
Lots of things we don’t understand in the CASA data since haven’t seen before. Big learning curve. Change in methodology will be warrented.

Liz Quoetone and Paul Schlatter (EWP Weekly Coordinators, 1-5 June 2009)

Live Blog – 3 June 2009 (8:51 pm) – End of IOP Debrief

Posted in Live Blogs on June 3, 2009 by Paul Schlatter.

LMA IOP (LWX and AKQ CWAs):

After this event, need to have the full resolution data. Smoothed VILMA data did not do any favors for visualization in AWIPS
Trends in google earth were very useful until the storms were too far away

PAR Archived Cases (TS Erin and July 11, 2006)

Were able to get prods out more quickly
Erin event wouldn’t have been much of a problem in JAX or other tropical offices because they are used to those types of signatures and warning for them. PAR really benefited an event like this with mini supercells in a rapidly changing environment

CASA Archived Cases (Feb 10,2009 and May 7, 2007)

warnings without CASAS for May 7 would have been impossible b/c needed full resolution in time and space
Couldn’t use CASA without using the 88D because couldn’t see what was happening aloft. Great detail for the tornado threat
Attenuation problem needed to be filled in my 88D

Liz Quoetone and Paul Schlatter (EWP Weekly Coordinators, 1-5 June 2009)

Live Blog – 3 June 2009 (7:35 pm)

Posted in Live Blogs on June 3, 2009 by Paul Schlatter.

Teams are switching. Pete/Jenni will work though TS Erin on the PAR, while Bill/Veronica will be running through May 9, 2007 on CASA. Severe weather continues across MFR and EKA.

Liz Quoetone and Paul Schlatter (EWP Weekly Coordinators, 1-5 June 2009)

Live Blog – 3 June 2009 (5:45 pm)

Posted in Live Blogs on June 3, 2009 by Paul Schlatter.

Archived cases for PAR and CASA are being run. Bill/Veronica are working the August 19, 2007 Tropical Storm Erin case on PAR and Pete/Jenni are going through Feb 10, 2009 supercells with CASA. Will switch around 7 PM.

Liz Quoetone and Paul Schlatter (EWP Weekly Coordinators, 1-5 June 2009)

Live Blog – 3 June 2009 (5:00 pm)

Posted in Live Blogs on June 3, 2009 by Paul Schlatter.

Wrapping up IOP in the LMA network across E. VA. Right at this time MESH is showing 2.00 inches for the storm NW of Fredericksburg. Bill/Veronica issued a SVR for quarters in NC Rockingham County right before starting the survey. Pete/Jenni saw several hail spikes out of the convection in AKQ, where they were working and had issued an SVR just prior to the survey as well. MESH once again allowed for finding the storms that had the best threat for SVR hail on a day with several pulse/multicell storms in the area. Dinner time til 5:30, then PAR/CASA archived cases.

Liz Quoetone and Paul Schlatter (EWP Weekly Coordinators, 1-5 June 2009)

Live Blog – 3 June 2009 (4:39 pm)

Posted in Live Blogs on June 3, 2009 by Paul Schlatter.

1.00 inch hail report came in, listed as occuring at 2124 UTC in Albemarle County, VA. MESH at the time and 15 min prior had a very small core of 1.00 inch. Could be a timing of the report issue. Bill/Veronica didn’t issue a warning for that area. At the time, prior to the report, it didn’t look severe. LMA had very low values in that area, probably because of the distace from the sensor.

Liz Quoetone and Paul Schlatter (EWP Weekly Coordinators, 1-5 June 2009)