GLM RGB showed the progression of a developing storm near the TBW DSS site this afternoon. Not only was lightning a threat communicated to the DSS site, but KTBW radar depicted a downburst signature as shown below, which prompted us to issue an SPS for wind to around 40 mph, frequent lightning, and heavy rain. 
track a developing storm near the Florida State Fair
-Joaq
A severe thunderstorm warning decision in eastern New Mexico was a challenge today as it was within a KABX beam blockage and the eastern NM radar, KFDX, was down. The signs of the intensifying storm were found on satellite, GLM, and then slowly ProbSevere as the radar reflectivity heights from KAMA (the nearest valid radar) were very disorganized and slow to respond compared to the trends depicted by satellite and GLM trends. An above anvil cirrus plume, IR thermal couplet, consistent GLM FED/MFE signature, and cloud top divergence depicted by the Octane Speed/Direction product showed signs of strong convection developing. While reflectivity below showed just a minimal 50 dbz core and no 60 dbz core. As ProbSevere V3 gradually increased to around 35%, the ProbSevere Satellite Growth/Intense Convection Prob. quickly increased. The satellite growth/Intense Convection is not weighted as high in V2 and because of that ProbSevere was much lower at the same time. While the radar reflectivity core was still missing, we decided to issue a warning for the storm given the other satellite based signatures. ProbSevere V3 began to show strong chances for severe weather approximately 13 minutes after the warning was issued, and a strong 60 dbz core developed on the KAMA radar shortly after with MESH getting as high as 3.5 inches.
GOES-16 Octane Direction. 
GOES-16 Octane Speed.
GOES-16 GLM RGB
KABX 0.5 degree reflectivity.
KAMA 0.5 degree reflectivity.
KPUX 0.5 degree reflectivity.

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ProbSevere probability charts.
MRMS output showing radar data approximately 20 minutes after warning issuance.
-Thunderstruck
– Joaq
PHS Model Comparisons and Thoughts
Above: Top is HRRR SHIP parameter, bottom is PHS SHIP parameter.
Looking at some of the convective parameters and indices around the CWA I was working with today (PUB), one thing that really stood out to me was how “splotchy” many of the parameters were when compared with the HRRR model. It’s very hard to believe that the model, especially at a 3 km resolution, is able to obtain that level of accuracy with regards to these parameters, or at the very least having gradients this sharp in many of these parameters doesn’t make much sense. Wondering if some of it is being driven by the extreme CAPE gradients that do show up later on, which are certainly going to be drivers in many of the severe indices.
Another thing I noticed is what looks to be a wave-like numerical instability within the first hour of the model – this could be having some big impacts on the model forecast, as you can see these reflected in the base fields (T, u, v, etc) and then having impacts on many of the other derived parameters that last through the forecast period, as shown in the image below:
CAPE also seems to initialize really high, then “jump” down to a lower value at the first hour. This is quite a large “adjustment” from the initial conditions that the model seems to start with. Shown below are hour 0 of the 14Z run and hour 1 of the 14Z run from Wednesday 5/24.
You can also see the numerical instability within this field that is in place across a large portion of the domain.
OCTANE
Octane was able to capture an interesting view of the Above Anvil Cirrus Plume on a very powerful storm along the New Mexico/Colorado border during the afternoon hours. The cirrus is a bit slower than the surrounding clouds within the sheared environment, providing that “V” type shape that we’ve come to associate with some of the strongest updrafts:
Another good example of using Octane for surveillance of storms – the direction product really highlighted another storm that quickly grew on the flank of another severe warned storm. Big value especially in areas where radar coverage might be limited by mountains, such as in the CWA I was working in today (PUB):
LightningCast
Used the LightningCast product extensively for DSS purposes today. We had a pretend outdoor event located in Pueblo, Colorado. A very strong thunderstorm (MESH estimated nearly 3″ or larger hail at one point) which passed within a few miles to the south and east of the city. I used the LightningCast probabilities in AWIPS overlaid with satellite data to provide multiple updates to Emergency Management, using it to confidently state that probabilities of lightning were increasing as storms approached from the south. Lead time for action would have been within the 45 min to 1 hour range. Was able to confidently say they would see lightning within the 10 mile range a good 15-30 minutes before the first strike occurred within the range per the ENTLN network data. Below is the LightningCast time series as output on the webpage for the KPUB airport, which is very close to where the DSS event was taking place:
There is definitely some very actionable lead time here. As a forecaster, having this type of data available to me outside of AWIPS is a game changer. I know it may be challenging, but being able to click on a point like this and get this type of information would be huge for briefings and emails with decision makers. Right now we are limited to airports. Even a relatively coarse mesh that would allow me to pick a close point would be extremely useful if these images can’t be generated on the fly. Other possible ideas include only generating points within a certain LightningCast threshold (say 10%), or generating them on the fly based on a click query. That all said, even in its current form I will be using it going forward, and making a point to share it with my office and WCM for DSS.
I also made a social media type graphic using the LightningCast product for hikers, given the large number of mountains within the CWA. Perhaps would have been a bit more meaningful to have sent this as storms were beginning to form, but they were already cooking once we got spun up and started. Highest probabilities were hugging the mountains where storms were forming. If I were formally posting to social media, I may have added some lightning safety graphics or something to that effect as part of the post (twitter thread, multiple images in Facebook post).
GLM RGB
This product does a great job in my opinion combining information from the FED and MFA. I found it useful for detecting lightning jumps within storms while still maintaining information about the overall coverage of lighting. Would happily use this as my primary GLM viewing option in AWIPS.
-Carl Coriolis
The Octane speed sandwich product highlighted a minimum in velocity in a rapidly developing thunderstorm across west central Elko County, NV, an indicator of strong outflow in the anvil on upwind side of the developing cell. An analysis of 1-minute GLM data also indicated a rapid increase in flashes for the same storm. These indicators acted as strong nudgers for the severe thunderstorm warning decision making process.
Octane Speed Sandwich indicates explosive convective development in west central Elko County. 2027Z to 2054Z
Visible satellite imagery coupled with 1-minute GLM depict rapid increase in lightning in west central Elko County. 2012Z to 2054Z
– Rain-Free Bass Guitar
The GLM parallax showed up again Thursday, June 16th, over the PBZ area. This was even more evident than yesterday’s event in WI that was written about in a blog post. Figure 1 has ProbSevere, LightningCast, GLM Flash Extent Density, and ENTLN data overlaid in a 4-panel. This case was fairly simple to “self correct” the parallax as the GLM was clearly displaced to the north of ProbSevere (as well as the base reflectivity). Really once you get a few cases under your belt recognizing the parallax, it’s not too challenging to keep that “self correct” in the back of your mind. One interesting thing to note about Figure 1 is the storm just outside the PBZ CWA just south of Mount Veron, Ohio (See bottom left in Figure 1). The ProbSevere and GLM FED are lined up perfectly and this is a great example of utilizing the lower threshold in the colormap. The bullseye shows up much nicer than the larger thresholds in the top two images.
Figure 1: GLM with ProbSevere and LightningCast
– Podium
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With the Buffalo CWA being a long and narrow forecast area, there are areas where the Buffalo Radar doesn’t provide good coverage. On a day like today where their second radar (KTYX) isn’t providing any data, the entire eastern half of the CWA has the Buffalo radar hitting storms at 20 kft or higher. This meant that we had to more heavily rely on Satellite data for warning operations.
Looking at the northeast corner of the CWA we had convection popping for a few hours along a frontal boundary. Being able to look at spikes in the GLM over time and Prob Severe time scales and just instances in the Prob Severe were very helpful with determining what was going on in the lower levels that weren’t visible on radar. As one storm over the lake begins to move inland there is a jump in the GLM and Prob Severe.
Being able to see the upward trends in time with the prob severe over time and then the increasing GLM was a big confidence boost to put out a warning.
-Cirrus Fields
Storms going up across NY State have been trending upward with time. So much so that we’ve gone beyond both the 65 and 130 flash/5 min rates:
179 flashes/5 minute north of Syracuse. That’s pretty impressive! And it’s been trending upwards so the lower left pane with the image scale up to 65 has been blown out for multiple frames.
– Pym
One of the easiest ways to get an argument…I mean discussion…going among AWIPS users is color tables.
However, in this case it does pose an interesting thought experiment because the color table isn’t changing but the scaling is. Case in point, look at a line of tornadic supercells across Wisconsin from the GOES East GLM:
Changing the range of the color table helps pull out some details with low flash rate storms. Although the northern storms have some higher flash rates and can be seen when the scale is set to the default (260), the southern storms with a lower flash rate can pull out more details with the lower maximum point (60).
Others this week have come up with some great ideas; developing a climatology for FED to know what the best ranges would be for the display for a given season, event type, etc. Another thing to look at is how to best develop a table for the logarithmic scale that is used with FED with a different or wider color range.
– Hank Pym
With a busy day still underway across Wisconsin, the use of the Optical Flow Winds, GLM, Prob Severe, and NUCAPS soundings were a big help in looking at the pre-convective storm environment and in warning operations.
When it came to looking at sounding data we had a NOAA-20, and AQUA pass for the polar orbiting satellites, that we could then compare to the special observed sounding from GRB.
