Today, we operated in 3 county warning areas:

Team 1 (Fowle & Anderson)

• Boulder, CO

Team 2 (Pelczynski & Satterfield)

• Pueblo, CO
• Huntsville, AL

Given the potential for cirrus-free skies and a lightning mapping array, we elected to operate in the High Plains where another upslope day was expected.  In particular, we chose the Pueblo and Boulder CWAs.  However, it became clear that the Pueblo CWA would wait to convect until later.  Given our time constraints (ended at 7 pm to start surveys), we decided to operate in the Huntsville CWA, where a very fast-moving MCS would move into a lightning mapping array.  Most of our experimental products were used, including the OUN WRF.  Several severe storms formed in both active CWAs, with multiple lightning jumps observed in both.

-G. Garfield
Week 4 Coordinator

Today, we operated in 4 county warning areas:

Team 1 (Fowle & Anderson)

• Louisville, KY
• Springfield, MO
• Cheyenne, WY

Team 2 (Pelczynski & Satterfield)

• Boulder, CO

Early in the day, it appeared that the greatest severe threat would exist in the MS/OH valley region.  Additionally, there were enough breaks in the high-level clouds to allow for use of the GOES-R satellite products.  However, as the day progressed, it became apparent that the region would not destabilize as much, so we moved Team 1 to Springfield, MO (based on a favorable mesoscale discussion).  As it turns out, the capping inversion would hold over that area.  Thus, we moved Team 1 to Cheyenne, WY – hoping that we could catch some lightning data from the LMA in Denver.  A few marginally-severe storms did develop.

Team 2 remained in Boulder all day.  There, they used the GOES-R products extensively, including the NearCast, UAH CI, Probability of Severe, and lightning data.  Several severe storms developed, though only one severe report was officially logged (for a landspout tornado).

-G. Garfield
Week 4 Coordinator

A strong short-wave trough moved through the Central Great Plains, generating severe thunderstorms in a strongly unstable and sheared environment.  During the event, we operated in two CWAs: Hastings and North Platte.  Forecasters Pelczynski and Anderson operated in Hastings; forecasters Fowle and Satterfield operated in North Platte.

When we started operations, convection had already begun in NC Nebraska, and it began to grow upscale as the sytem moved toward Omaha.  Further west, convective initiation held off for some time, before multiple storms fired along the warm front that stretched across central Nebraska.  A supercell near Ord, Nebraska became tornadic, and produced multiple tornadoes along its path just south of Omaha.

However, as the cold pool north of the warm front strengthened, it became increasingly clear that a major tornado event would not occur.  At the time of this writing, however, it appears that a significant wind event may still occur in eastern Nebraska into southern Iowa / northern Missouri (per the SPC high risk).

-G. Garfield
Week 4 Coordinator

As usual, Monday was an orientation day for the EWP.  Forecasters learned how to use the experimental products in the AWIPS2 environment, and began to develop comfort using the blog.

We monitored the potential for severe storms in the Wichita and Norman CWAs.  Forecasters Pelczynski and Anderson operated in Norman; forecasters Fowle and Satterfield operated in Wichita.  Severe storms never developed, in spite of early optimism from the OUN WRF.

-G. Garfield

Week 4 Coordinator

Another productive day in the HWT! We ended up operating in three domains today, Denver/Boulder, CO (BOU), Indianapolis, IN (IND), and Lubbock, TX (LUB). For most of the day we had two forecasters in the BOU and IND CWAs but moved IND to LUB within the final two hours when most of the severe convection moved out of the CWA. A weak mid-level impulse and steep lapse rates supported initiation along the TX/NM border and provided both teams of forecasters to look at the PGLM products and utilize the tracking meteogram tool with these datasets.

Our BOU team remained in their CWA and mainly tracked what will likely be called the “Denver Metro Area Supercell of May 21, 2014” for years to come (this title may need to be shortened…) All GOES-R, several LAPS 3D analysis products (from the 200×200 domain), MR/MS, and Super-Rapid Scan imagery were utilized in performing mesoscale and nowcasting analyses as well as warning issuance. Preliminary reports are coming in on the spatial extent of the main rain-wrapped tornado produced by this storm around 2000z.

Our IND team faced another training sequence of convective cells that came out of the northwest into the CWA. Numerous severe hail and wind reports through the central/southern parts of the CWA. The LAPS 800×800 domain was situated over this area of complex convection, providing 2D analyses and forecasts that our participants compared to MR/MS and other observational products.

-Darrel Kingfield
EWP Week 3 Coordinator

What some people (including me) called a marginal day last night were pleasantly surprised with the amount and extent of convection observed in all CWAs utilized today. For a majority of the day we operated in the Cheyenne, WY and Quad Cities, IA/IL CWAs (CYS and DVN). As a supercell fired east of Denver, CO (BOU) forecasters leveraged this opportunity to look at the lightning jump detection algorithm and track total lightning on the tornado warned storm. In the late afternoon as the storms in the CYS area weakened, we shifted our product evaluation to Chicago, IL (LOT) for a DVN/LOT side-by-side warning operations session.

By splitting our operations into West vs. East, we were able to take advantage of (and blog about) almost all products brought into the experiment…with the exception of OUNWRF (sorry Gabe 🙁 ). The tracking meteogram was put to the test again today with  forecasters wanting to track multiple product types simultaneously (radar + MR/MS, etc.) with mixed results. All forecasters issued their fair share of warnings (especially Danielle!) this afternoon. The training storms in the DVN region provided quite the challenge and convection is firing like crazy in LOT right now. I think it will be hard to pull the forecasters away from their computers tonight.

-Darrel Kingfield
EWP Week 3 Coordinator

Today started with such promise (or blind optimism…whatever you want to call it): an isolated region of “SLGT” risk encompassing parts of of SE Wyoming and W Nebraska with many storm-scale models showing isolated thunderstorm initiation around 21z. EFP probabilistic forecasts were focused in this area as well.

Forecasters were situated in the Cheyenne, WY (CYS) and North Platte, NE (LBF) for the duration of the shift on the edge of their seats waiting for initiation.

We must realize that not all days will be “end of the world” scenarios, and today provided a great medium for forecasters to be exposed to several of the experimental product sets for comparative analysis and evaluation (sans OUNWRF).

vLAPS was utilized to (1) identify and diagnose regions of enhanced instability (mainly CAPE) and (2) validate forecast composite reflectivity with MR/MS composite reflectivity. Throughout the day, comparative analyses of the NSSL-WRF simulated satellite imagery with real-time IR/WV fields were analysed. Any convection was immediately pounced upon with Super-Rapid Scan visible analysis, ProbSevere and Convective Initiation product analyses. NearCast was utilized to gauge storm lifetime and identify regions of destabilization.

The tracking meteogram was put through its paces today with numerous data dropouts observed in the time trend graph during periods were these data were available. Forecasters consistently wanted to use the 0.5 deg reflectivity mosaic product for tracking.

Near the end of the shift, total lightning from the Northern Colorado LMA was observed in Laramie and Kimball Counties in Wyoming which gave forecasters (1) exposure to the SPoRT LMA plugin and (2) guidance on how total lightning information can be combined with other sensor information (e.g. radar, satellite) in the storm interrogation process.

-Darrel Kingfield
EWP Week 3 Coordinator

For the final day of week 2, we operated in the Sterling and Shreveport CWA’s. The folks in the Sterling CWA were able to take advantage of the DC LMA and evaluate the PGLM total lightning and Lightning Jump products. Unfortunately, the lightning activity was quite minor, but they were still able to get a feel for those products. Forecasters in the Shreveport CWA were able to utilize most of the GOES-R products (minus lightning) and the OUN WRF model in forecasting for clear-sky convection in the ARKLATEX region. Though severe weather was not widespread, it was beneficial to evaluate these products in a more marginal clear sky situation.

Tomorrow at noon, this weeks participants will share their experiences from the week via the “Tales from the Testbed” webinar.

– Bill Line, GOES-R SPC/HWT Satellite Liaison and Week 2 EWP Coordinator