Increasing Severe Probs with Increasing Object Size

Initially, prob severe detected a small area for it’s algorithm and it tagged it with low severe probabilities. As the storm progressed, prob severe picked up a larger area for the object, and when it did that, the probabilities increased. This could indicate that the storm is gaining strength, but radar presentation has remained almost steady state. This could be a detection issue as when it picks up a larger area, the probabilities increase due to size.

-Stormy Surge

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Rapid Probability Increase Notification

Some feedback on the Rapid Probability Increase Notification: This is a very useful feature for situational awareness. I think it can be made even more effective  in the following ways: the graph of the rapid increase should be clearly labelled with when the rapid increase occurred compared to the current time/trend, i.e., how long ago, to compare with the most recent trend. The graphic pop-up box text  should highlight either by color and/or bolding/increased font size the percentages. Also, it should be in whole percentage points instead of the example here of 26.100%

Posted by: Rigel

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TORP False Alarm?

Along a line of storms riding a surface-based instability gradient and good environmental SRH, TORP had a large jump from nearly nothing to a max of 70% in a matter of a few scans. AzShear didn’t look all that impressive as you can see the very meager jump in max values on the graph. Comparing to KDMX data, there was a general signature in the velocity data for one scan with some convergence noted, but it never really tightened up enough that I would have expected to see a that high of a TORP value. The data was real, but it looks like it was sampling the meso which was relatively weak as well. The range from the radar was around 100 km so it was approaching the known distance where it’s less trustworthy, but the takeaway here from me is that I think the high TORP value didn’t match what I had in my head when I looked at velocity data. -newt

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First Indication

I still don’t know if this will turn into anything, but AZ shear signal that is being picked up along with the trend is concerning. This storm is just starting to show some inbound velocity and this may be a very early warning signal. Definitely worth watching at this point.

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Filter Probability

Quick example of a very small false signal (low prob around 30%) that appears in AZ shear data. That said, I think this is good. It forced a quick look at V/SRM data to see if it was real, and it could be quickly eliminated – and it quickly disappeared from AZshear in the next couple of minutes. Showed up on multiple radars – also good. I also think setting filter lower to say 15% would be better. Having the extra circles there is not problamatic and does not prevent you from seeing the data behind it.

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An Extra TORP/AzShear Update?

Radar scans came into AWIPS and with TORP at 1922, 24, 27, and 28z. However, an extra update came in to  TORP at 1925z. This is strange given that there wasn’t really an extra radar scan, but the data looked real with legitimate updates. It was helpful too as the TORP increased from 51% at 1922z to 82% at 1925z with an evident increase in the AzShear, which is a big confidence booster in getting a proactive tornado warning out which isn’t easy to do in a messy QLCS setup. I guess glitch or not, can’t argue having an extra mysterious update. -newt

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Initial Observation found during Test Case

Today’s archived training case starts us off with an already fairly active (and wet) broken line of storms dragging through Georgia.  As I’m getting acclimated with looking at Az Shear and TORP, I found an interesting drop out of data. While using KJGX radar, TORP was tracking a mesocyclone for a few frames before dropping out as said mesocyclone continued to approach the radar site. The mesocyclone did not seem to lose intensity or be cycling, so I was confused by TORP’s sudden disinterest.

0.5 degree Reflectivity and Storm Relative Motion Velocity of a decent mesocyclone.
Az Shear displaying a good couplet with no TORP object due to other radar’s detected as “closer”

I was then reminded that other radars may be reporting “closer” TORP objects. So I flicked on the ability to see TORP objects from multiple radars and low and behold, several objects were still tracking the meso.

Az Shear couplet with TORP objects from other radars, not KJGX where the Az Shear data is from.

The probabilities of these TORP objects were rather high with values of 64%, 68%, and 80%. I’m still a little confused on why one of these is read as closer than the actual closest radar of KJGX, but it did give me an idea. It would be neat to allow a sort of threshold limit to TORP objects from other radars to pop in when at a high enough probability so you have less but more potent objects on screen.

-Wx Warlock

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Trendline comparison for velocity and elevation

I compared Absolute Maximum Velocity and Elevation in order to see if there is a co-dependence between these two values as a result of sampling limitations due to distance from the RDA. The two images here show the velocity trend does not appear to be affected by distance from the radar.

Posted by: Rigel

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Satellite HWT Day 4 Carl

Satellite HWT Day 4 Thoughts

Octane Direction

During my initial afternoon analysis I noticed a good use case for the directional product in identifying how different air masses may be coming together over the CWA. In the directional product below, we can see the magenta showing the moist surface air mass that is advecting up from the SE into west Texas and western NM. A drier air mass that is creating a bit of a dry line is pushing from the west in the more yellow colors, with some glaciating cu noted within the Day Cloud Phase RGB. Elevated convection that is still persisting from overnight can be see pushing to the southeast in the lower right, giving the more green colors. This provided a very clear and quick way to pick out these different air masses that will be the main players later in the afternoon for potential convection.

MoistGradConv RGB ECONUS

Some really interesting features that stood out when looking at this imagery during the afternoon today. Notice the sharp gradient in the light vs dark greens running across Texas, starting in the southern pandhandle near the NM border and then running SE through central parts of TX. When overlaid with 24 hour MRMS precip, you can see a clear boundary between the areas that received rain last night (the panhandle, darker greens) and the area that did not (lighter green in the Big Bend areas). This clearly stands out in the Snow/Ice NIR band which makes up a portion of the RGB. Moisture can also be seen pooling in west Texas as it moves northwestard along the edge of the Mexican Plateau. Obs later in the day showed that the “brighter” area was mixing out a bit faster given the lack of soil moisture. Some good potential situational awareness being combined within the RGB, given the ability of this to also pick out things like the dry line a little bit easier.

ProbSevere v3

Issued a warning in an area of pretty poor radar coverage (lowest tilt height was around 15kft). MRMS was still capturing a good bit of the freezing level to -20C isothermal levels, so ProbSevere was running pretty strongly with hail probabilities. Additionally, there were some significant bursts of cooler cloud tops, and the Octane product began to show some of the stronger “divergent” signatures that we had seen throughout the week as well as highlighting a clear AACP, all signs of a stronger updraft capable of keeping hail lofted.

Given the environment, these products definitely gave me additional confidence and potential lead time, given these cores really grew tremendously about 15 minutes later, including an eventual split and right mover that likely produced some large hail (hard to verify in this area given lack of population).

More Octane (Speed)!

Another picture from later of how this storm grew and exploded. Octane was showing yet another AACP. A very interesting feature of this is that Octane speed algorithm does seem to be “tracking” the AACP in a way. There are a lot of research groups out there that have been looking at ways to track these features for injections of tropospheric moisture into the stratosphere among other things, so this could be a novel way at looking at that problem.

An hour or so later, we can see how the Octane product can be used to see that a storm was weakening. The deep blue divergent signature began to quickly fade, an indication that the updraft wasn’t as strong as it was previously. Given this is data flowing in from the mesoscale sectors on GOES 16, we are getting one minute updates, which will give some lead time over analyzing the core of the storm via the radar or MRMS which needs to get the radar data and then process it. This can be important for SVS or considerations for a downstream severe. I ended up still issuing a downstream severe, but was able to use what I was seeing in the product with the weakening trend to decrease the expected hail size. MRMS and ProbSevere trends closely followed, moving downward in severity.

Above: Weakening trend starts around 22Z for the Octane Speed product in the top left

Below: ProbSevere and MRMS trends begin to come down around 22:05Z or so, lagging the above by a few minutes. Every minute counts in lead time.

-Carl Coriolis

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