EWP Blog – Page 344 – Spring Experiments & Beyond

Live Blog – 28 April 2009 (8:40pm: wrap-up)

Posted in Live Blogs on April 28, 2009 by Greg Stumpf.

MAF started issuing TORs at 7:35pm (CDT). EWP started at 8:35 CDT.

First take-away – the MESH and ROT tracks giving a better handle on the storm motion, and thus the EWP warning polygons were more to the rifght than the MAF polygons.

For SVR – went from holfball hail to baseball hail, influenced the MESH and the H50_above_H253 (went from 16 to 20 kft). Ref -20 up to 61 dBZ.

Felt that these products were useful over alltilts – so they looked at WDSSII products more, versus the confort zone of the all tilts analysis.

There were notificaiton issues that affected our SA this evening. Also, at first, the warnings were not being transmitted – we fixed that later for our MAF exercise. We didn’t archive any of the ABQ warnings.

Will post images soon…

Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 Apr – 1 May 2009)

Live Blog – 28 April 2009 (8:30pm)

Posted in Live Blogs on April 28, 2009 by Greg Stumpf.

Issued TOR on storm in Eddy County NM. Based on rotation really ramping up. WDSSII was not corroborating it, but base KMAF data was showing strong LL shear, continiuty.

Turns out the 3-6 km 120min rotation track showed an increase. But the 0-2 shear (what they were looking at) showed decreasing trend. TORpedoed it nonetheless.

Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 Apr – 1 May 2009)

Live Blog – 28 April 2009 (8:05pm)

Posted in Live Blogs on April 28, 2009 by Greg Stumpf.

Did some analysis of the azimuthal shear, but decided to hold off on TOR. Considering updating their SVR as the storm is right turning some more and the hail numbers are staying up.

SVR was sent to replace original polygon. Original polygon might have covered it, but it was more right-turning. MESH track, right turn in MESH track.

Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 Apr – 1 May 2009)

Live Blog – 28 April 2009 (7:45pm)

Posted in Live Blogs on April 28, 2009 by Greg Stumpf.

Issuing SVR on Eddy storm now. Strong mid-altitude rotationat 14 kft. Over 60 dBZ @ -20degC. 16 kft H50_above_H253. MESH > 1.5″ MESH history for continuity. MR helped refine the warning. Helped to contruct polygon. MESH track revealed the right turn, and polygon was adjusted for that. Spotter report alone might have messed up track.

Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 Apr – 1 May 2009)

Live Blog – 28 April 2009 (7:35pm)

Posted in Live Blogs on April 28, 2009 by Greg Stumpf.

We’ve switched locaization from ABQ to MAF, as our Chaves County storm croaked. New storm in Eddy county is being worked for warnings. Spotter report 1″ hail 5 N Whites City.

Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 Apr – 1 May 2009)

Live Blog – 28 April 2009 (7:15pm)

Posted in Live Blogs on April 28, 2009 by Greg Stumpf.

Issuing an SVS now based on M1.25″ hail report 15 N ROW.

It appears that our first warning did not get transmitted to the px1 server. We’re looking into it. We’re also expecting bugs – it’s our first time doing this!

Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 Apr – 1 May 2009)

Live Blog – 28 April 2009 (6:55pm)

Posted in Live Blogs on April 28, 2009 by Greg Stumpf.

Our first live blog entry…

Our forecasters are currently getting familiar with the multi-radar/sensor products on an isolated supercell which is to the SW of the Cannon AFB radar site, east of Roswell.

Storm has developed a nice TBSS. MESH tracks also trending upwards again, above 1″. Sue and Steve are issuing our first experimental SVR warning.

Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 Apr – 1 May 2009)

Outlook – 28 April 2009

Posted in Outlooks on April 28, 2009 by Greg Stumpf.

Southwesterly flow aloft continues with the broad trough over the western U. S. Small impulses through the flow are likely for the next few days, with some timing to produce convection in the southern High Plains. On the surface, a strong upslope pattern is prevelent over eastern NM and SW TX, but as of 1pm, most of the area east of the mountains are socked in with low clouds, fog, and cool temperatures. There is evidence of the erosion of the low clouds on the west edge, and this trend is expected to continue into the evening.

The SPC DY1 outlook is seen here:

So, we are expecting an IOP for the multi-radar/sensor algorithms for SW TX and SE NM starting around 5pm. Before that, we will have the forecasters run through several CASA archive cases.

Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 Apr – 1 May 2009)

Summary – 27 April 2009

Posted in Daily Summaries on April 27, 2009 by Greg Stumpf.

Today we crammed! Got the general orientation, WDSSII GUI, PAR, and CASA training in as quickly as possible in order to work an early IOP on the storms in Central OK. Unfortunately, as soon as we were ready, the storms decided to fizzle out. Therefore, we conducted a very short real-time IOP on the remaining convection using the PAR data. There was one decent example of the descending reflectivity core that was highly resolved by the PAR data, but for the most part, there was little to be observed.

The rest of the evening was spent having the visiting forecasters go through a PAR archive case (T.S. Erin Aug 2007) to gather feedback. We then completed the training sessions for the multi-radar/sensor applications and the LMA project during the final hour of the shift.

DY2 appears to be a West Texas event, and most likely our IOP will focus on the multi-radar/sensor applications.

Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 April – 1 May 2009)

Outlook – 27 April 2009

Posted in Outlooks on April 27, 2009 by Greg Stumpf.

Déjà vu! As like last year, the first day of the first week of the experiment finds us with a developing severe weather event right at the start of the shift. With little time to get ready, we are having a compressed orientation schedule today so that we can begin our first Intensive Operations Period (IOP) as soon as possible.

A cold front is slowly moving through central Oklahoma, and storms are already firing, and severe, on a SW-NE line to the northwest of Norman. Storms are presently impacting the PAR, CASA, and LMA domains.

These are on the edge (actually outside) the SPC DY1 SLGT RISK area, and a severe thiunderstorm watch as just been issued to encopass the convection (although some of it is outside the box too!).

The plan is to train our two visiting forecasters (Steve Cobb, LUB – Lubbock, TX; Suzanne Fortin, EAX – Pleasant Hill, MO) on the WDSSII display and the PAR project, then train on CASA. After that, we will evaluate the situation, and if needed, will commence IOP immediately, splitting up the two forecasters on PAR and CASA, possibly to rotate between the two experiments half-way through. If the storms are already out of the CSAA domain by the start of the IOP, then we will do an LMA experiment, although we prefer to have the LMA data available at convective initiation, which is already passed.

Greg Stumpf (EWP Weekly Coordinator, 27 April – 1 May 2009)