In the image above you can see that the AzShear and the Velocity product from the single radar have the circulation now lost in the infamous ‘purple haze’. One of the benefits of any MRMS product and in this case the Merged AzShear product is visibility in times like this. Neighboring radars (either individually or in the Merged Product) would still show the ongoing circulation. So lets take a look!

In the merged product you can indeed still see the circulation going strong in the Merged AzShear product, continuing to follow the pink tornado track, while the velocity couplet remains hidden (we are also getting far from the radar so we are looking well aloft in the storm). BUT the one noticeable feature of the Merged AzShear is the triple maxima in this case due to the SAILS cuts making their way into the Merged AzShear product.

Again this triple maxima is an artifact that training and experience would negate, but does show some of the good and the bad in terms of the Merged AzShear.

-Alexander T.

Later in the life of the storm, AzShear remains relatively high, even as the couplet in SRM is less obvious (though still there). This would boost confidence to keep a tornado warning going.However, toward the end of the tornado track both velocity and AzShear wash out before the tornado ceases (pink line).Sandor Clegane

While not at an ideal angle to view storm top divergence, AzShear very nicely highlights strong storm top divergence on this tornadic supercell.Sandor Clegane

One usefulness of the upper tilts in the Single Radar AzShear product is to be able to check and dismiss any erroneous data in the 0.5 degree tilt. In the image below you can see some speckled erroneous data in the 0.5 degree tilt ahead of the main line of storms. It could appear at a quick glance to be small spin ups in the AzShear data, but just quickly looking at the Velocity or Reflectivity shows that this is erroneous data.

Another check is just doing a quick check of the 0.9 degree tilt. Those local max in the AzShear are not present even just one tilt above. If these were to be real circulations you would expect depth in the circulation.

It is worth noting that these errors to at times make their way into the Merged AzShear product at least at the lower 0.2km AGL product. You can see that example below of the brighter reds below the large maxima in the center of the AzShear product. Even after only 2 days of looking at the AzShear products the large maxima keeps all of my attention, but someone looking at this product for the first time may see the brighter reds to the south and wonder about those.

-Alexander T.

In the first image below, there is clearly a strong supercell that undoubtedly warrants a severe thunderstorm warning. Without having a full picture of what the environment looks like, and without looking at additional radar products, I can’t say for certain whether or not it should have tornado warning, given the strong convergant but non-rotational signature.In this next image, a couple of AzShear features stand out to me. 1) Positive values of AzShear have begun spiking on the north side of the convergant zone. 2) I believe that you’ve seeing the RFD start to kick downstream. Shortly thereafter, the storm develops a very clear couplet and it is clear this storm deserves a tornado warning. The tornado survey revealed that the tornado began when the second image in this post was captured. AzShear did a nice job highlighting important features on this storm, and may have lead to additional lead time on a tornado warning.Sandor Clegane

Overall – impressed by Inst AzShear.  Think this could be a real game changer.  Would like to see this fast tracked into AWIPS.

1.  When used in conjunction with other base and DP products – really supplements storm structure evolution – e.g. gust fronts, UDCZ, RFDs.
2. Areas of highest values > 0.01 are easy to see – and give forecasters an easy method to triage what storms need attention.
3. Focused much of my time with Inst AzShear at 0.5 deg.  Did tilt up on a number of occasions to find values near cloud base – and often times very similar to lowest cut.  Would be interesting to see how this performs with mid-level mesos – for things like hail production
4. Only real drawback I see is the “noisy” appearance to data – especially in areas of ground clutter, wind farms, etc.  But I think forecasters would get used to it quickly.
5. Merged products also useful – both individual and tracks – mainly from an SA perspective – trends, tracks of meso, polygonolgy, etc.

Merged products end up showing trend information as new sails cuts come in. In the cases below, notice that the northern storm’s AzShear is weakening over time and the southern storm is increasing.

Above, you can see on the northern storm that the last tile shows weaker leading AzShear. At the same time, note that the leading AzShear signature in the southern storm is increasing.

The northern storm continues to dissipate as the upper tilts catch up to the sails cuts that were weakening earlier. While the southern storm continues to increase in AzShear intensity as the sails cuts would suggest.

At this point the northern storm is gone and the southern storm is quite strong and large.

So not only does AzShear provide a situational awareness of the strength of a couplet, it can also show rotational trends in a storm over time assuming that SAILS is turned on. Plus, the more sails the more information you’ll get in these plots. In the case above it appears SAILS2 was on as you’d get two leading signatures before the data merged back into one storm.

–FLGatorDon

Around 2120Z – interesting structure on a storm SE of KMXX.   Can see in Azshear – inflow from the south immediately ahead of the gust front.  However, behind this feature – can see an area of enhanced Azshear.  Question would be – how much would the PBL be worked over – cooled – and how might that influence tornadic potential?  Yet – another easy depiction on what is going on with storm evolution.

The single radar AzShear product continues to show utility in diagnosing storm structure and trends which leads to higher confidence and earlier warning decisions (in addition to the overall SA nature of the product).

In this case you can clearly see the line segment transition from (see captions):

— FLGatorDon