Category: OCTANE Speed Sandwich

6/15 HWT OUN SuperCell

Posted in OCTANE Speed Sandwich, PHSnMWnABI, ProbSevere, SPG2023 on by Kevin Thiel.

A very intense supercell formed across western portions of OUN CWA. This cell underwent many transformations including splitting and merging at other times. Octane was very interesting to watch as this cell went through the various processes before eventually producing a tornado. Octane was able to show the storm splitting before it occurred on radar.  PHS was also showing corridors of stronger 0-3 and 0-1 SRH; SPC Mesoanalysis was showing this as well but I did like how the PHS was able to highlight exactly where these occurred. Seeing that and a near stationary boundary did increase my confidence that if a storm was able to latch on it would become tornadic. Probsevere/MESH did struggle to catch on to how large the hail actually was initially before finally picking up on the hail size.

4 Panel with Octane on the top row; appears to be two distinct divergence signatures occurring

Radar Loop of storm splitting shortly after Octane signature…. Notice how the left mover dissipates.

Using the 4 panel with Octane, IR and Day Cloud Phase it was also beneficial to see the upper divergence signature on Octane correlate with the cooling cloud tops of IR and Day Cloud Phase. Although it didn’t seem to create any additional lead time with that aspect; at least that I was able to notice. It was overall a very interesting storm to watch for this experiment.

4 Panel Intensification of storm.  Note the rapid color gradient to blue (upper level divergence)on Octane towards the end of the loop.

Radar loop around the same time as the 4 panel above   

– Tor Nader

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6/15 Feedback for AMA

Posted in LightningCast, NUCAPS, OCTANE Speed Sandwich, PHSnMWnABI, ProbSevere, SPG2023 on by Kevin Thiel.

PHS

The surface based CINH at 20z lined up rather well with the satellite imagery showing the slightly more stable clouds over the eastern CWA.

When sampling an image versus contours, the contour sampling has the entire product name in the readout

PHS captured the initial convection just east of AMA well, even though the convection started an hour earlier than PHS indicated.  Image on right is PHS SB CAPE and contours are PHS SB CINH.  Home is roughly where the storm is located.  Satellite image is around 1930z and PHS forecast is 21z when CINH dropped from 80j/kg to 40 j/kg.

PHS did a reasonable job predicting the general storm coverage by 21z from the 16z run.

Toward the end of the exercise, the storm coverage was well captured by the PHS 16z run.  Should have taken this into account for my public graphics when describing the storm evolution.

NUCAPS

This is a NUCAPS sounding in the TX panhandle near AMA vs. a RAP40 sounding at the same point.  The RAP has the same trend in the dew point profile as NUCAPS, but is lower.

Noticed the NUCAPS sounding didn’t have the lower dew points around 400 mb as shown in the special sounding.  NUCAPS did have a hint of the weak cap near the surface though.

NUCAPS 700-500mb lapse rates from the gridded data was a constant 34.17 C/KM across the map.

NUCAPS forecast for ML CAPE was slightly less than what SPC mesoanalysis had at the same time of 20z.

NUCAPS ML CINH was higher than SPC Mesanalysis for 20z, with some parts of the CWA having almost 90j/kg of CINH south of Liberal, KS.

The 700-500mb lapse rates matched well with SPC meosanalysis for 20z.

OCTANE

OCTANE showed the cumulus developing along the dry line and warm front well.  Can also distinguish which clouds are becoming taller.

OCTANE highlighted where convection was taller, and Lightning Cast started to show probabilities for those same updrafts.

ProbHail

Noticed what could be an above anvil cirrus plume with the storm in question.  Prob Hail only had a 35% chance for severe hail at the time.

Prob Tor

Noticed the Prob Tor jumped up depending on what cells it was encompassing.  Took three screen shots to denote the trend.  Seemed reasonable for it to increase since the end cell was ingesting the dry line at the time the probabilities increased.

-Rainman

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Day 4 Review of Products & Operational Applications

Posted in LightningCast, OCTANE Speed Sandwich, PHSnMWnABI, SPG2023 on by Kevin Thiel.

Today, I took on the role of mesoanalyst during operations. I first looked at PHS fields (mainly MUCAPE and bulk shear) and compared them to the SPC mesoanalysis of said fields. The two agreed well, though I do have a suggestion – PHS bulk shear fields are given in m/s, but knots or mph would be better for quick comparison to SPC mesoanalysis and most model output.

I then looked at OCTANE imagery and immediately took note of the divergence signature associated with an especially robust storm over western DDC (Figure 1). This signature was easy to identify as the environmental winds aloft were relatively light.

Figure 1

As the operational period wore on, LightningCast indicated a high likelihood of convection over the southwest portion of DDC well before any radar returns actually appeared (Figure 2). My group used this information to create a DSS graphic that highlighted this area for likely storm development later (which did in fact end up happening).

Figure 2

OCTANE Direction later captured what at first glance appeared to be a couple divergence signatures over southwestern DDC (Figure 3). Upon closer inspection, however, these signatures were co-located with relative minima in OCTANE Speed. The proximity of these signatures to areas of missing pixels (where winds are likely <5 kts) in OCTANE Direction suggests very light winds and/or lower quality data, per the developer.

Figure 3

– Vort Max

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SHV Feedback for 6/14 and some feedback from LZK CWA

Posted in NUCAPS, OCTANE Speed Sandwich, PHSnMWnABI, SPG2023 on by Kevin Thiel.

NUCAPS

Noticed the SHV special sounding was very similar to the NUCAPS sounding done an hour later.  NUCAPS on the left and SHV on the right.  The surface and near surface environment did not match as well.

OCTANE

Neat to see OCTANE highlight the taller clouds that are developing behind the main storm activity over the western CWA.  Lightning Cast started highlighting this area too for a lightning threat.

Very nice divergent signature on the updraft.  However, the 80 kts of divergence seems underdone given the MESH of 1.51”.  I know the speeds are dependent on the environmental winds, but just seemed odd given the hail potential.  Calibration would be helpful to help determine the hail size potential based on updraft divergence.

OCTANE captured two updrafts from a splitting storm over LZK’s CWA.  This helped to see the potential split earlier than when viewable on Radar.

Here is when OCTANE first denoted the split vs. what radar had at the same time.

PHS

Handled the storm location and timing rather well at the start of the exercise for SHV.

Noticed for the LZK CWA PHS was about 2-3 hours early with the storm activity, but had the location correct.  Radar image at 21z, PHS image at 19z

– Rainman

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BMX Severe Thunderstorms

Posted in DSS, LightningCast, OCTANE Speed Sandwich, PHSnMWnABI, ProbSevere, SPG2023 on by Kevin Thiel.

Overall, I used OCTANE, PHS, ProbSevere 3 and LtgCast today. NUCAPS wasn’t really accessible. Worked the DSS event, an Air Show, which was canceled due to severe thunderstorms all afternoon producing tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds. DSS for this event would have been done days ago.

Below is a shot of LtgCast on a radar background and ELN measured lightning, the +/- are positive and negative ground strokes, and the cyan dots are in-cloud. It is interesting how the 75% probs lead out into southwestern Georgia though the showers there are more stratified and lightning isn’t expected, yet it gave about 45 minute notice of lightning strikes; that’s a good thing. But how useful is this? It predicted a few single lightning strikes tens of miles apart scattered across 100 miles which isn’t really useful; would you stop all outdoor activities across ¼ of Georgia for a few stray strikes? Would you clear the baseball field because a lightning strike will hit in the next hour somewhere within 50 miles? Not likely, but knowing there is some chance is valuable information for an event coordinator for risk analysis. If they can make minor changes to activities with little or no impacts, it helps, especially if it’s an area where lightning isn’t expected. What would be a big plus would be an estimate of flash density/frequency expected to go with the probs. That gets back to tracking the convective cells to predict areas of dense lightning. We have radar and ELN’s for that.

PHS composite reflectivity vs radar at 21Z… I find little value in the PHS composite reflectivity product. Below you see PHS composite reflectivity compared to the radar returns at 21Z. It’s not doing too well and I haven’t seen a time when it has done well predicting where the storms will be. The HRRR, NSSL WARF, HRef, NAM Nest and other high res models do much better.

PHS Bulk Shear 0-1 km below on the left and 0-3 km below on the right both show a line between areas of lower and higher shear along the boundary where the severe storms were tracking, but this occurred after the convection started. I don’t see a pre convection signal pointing to where the training storms formed.

The Bulk Shear 0-6 km below shows more promise with the 19Z  frame showing a boundary where the training severe storms formed/tracked (what did it look like at 16Z or 17Z?). I would need to see more of this pre convection to really make a judgment, and would need to see positive validation/verification to have any confidence in it as a tool.

– Super Bolt

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Day 3 Review of Products & Operational Applications

Posted in OCTANE Speed Sandwich, PHSnMWnABI, ProbSevere, SPG2023 on by Kevin Thiel.

I took on the warning forecaster role during the operational period today. A supercell was underway at the start of the period, so I began by issuing a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. ProbSevere was (unsurprisingly) indicating a slam dunk for severe wind and large hail (Figure 1) but I noticed when sampling the ProbSevere data that MESH was slow to pick up on just how large the hail was with this storm. A broadcast meteorologist passed along a report of 5-inch hail at 2000z, but MESH did not indicate 4+ inch hail until 2020z.

Figure 1

I also noticed that PHS composite reflectivity was much too slow with the progression of convection across the SHV CWA. Below are a screenshot of PHS progged composite reflectivity at 21z and a screenshot of the radar 0.3 degree reflectivity at 21z. PHS expected the supercell of interest to still be located over the northeast portion of SHV (Figure 2) while in reality the supercell was about to exit the easternmost fringes of the CWA (Figure 3).

Figure 2

Figure 3

Once the aforementioned supercell exited the SHV CWA, we pivoted to the LZK CWA to monitor the ongoing convection there. I decided to interrogate the OCTANE products because I hadn’t looked at much satellite imagery thus far.

OCTANE was especially useful in two ways today:

  • OCTANE Speed indicated a storm split underway as two speed maxima can be seen in the red-orange hues (Figure 4, top left panel)
  • I tweaked the AWIPS colormap for OCTANE Direction to better depict the storm-top divergence occurring (Figure 4, top right panel)

Figure 4

– Vort Max

Tags: None

6/14/23 HWT – SHV

Posted in LightningCast, NUCAPS, OCTANE Speed Sandwich, PHSnMWnABI, ProbSevere, SPG2023 on by Kevin Thiel.

Operational window encompassed ongoing severe storms at the start of the period which moved eastward out of the CWA by mid afternoon. The resultant outflow boundary / cold front intersection to the west of the CWA become the focus regions for potential for renewed storm development.

NUCAPS 6/14/23 19z sounding south of the outflow boundary of interest compared to nearby surface observation showed a large discrepancy in observed surface conditions (90/72 at nearby ASOS). This raises considerable questions on how these soundings are to be best utilized in operations.

OCTANE was useful in monitoring the attempted updrafts along the outflow boundary. It seems to show updraft growth more clearly than the day cloud phase product. I would like to see these data incorporated into the LightningCast model as this product is also very good at highlighting potential areas for CI.

OCTANE output was also viewed  in a region of a splitting supercell across western AR. Good conversation with developers on further development of the wind retrievals with observational data constructed hodographs being an operational request.

Utilized LightningCast to highlight the region of concern for new storm development. The storms did develop but it was a more gradual evolution. The highlighted region did verify as the region of development.

ProbSevere did a great  job as a safety net for radar warning operations. The element trend window is a helpful addition.  Talked with the developer on potential marking times along the time series where the element changes ID or grows in area to show when ProbSevere has merged or separated elements as this impacts resultant probabilities.

PHS model output from the 16z run was viewed online and compared to the corresponding HRRR. At the time of the exercise conclusion its solution had verified better on composite reflectivity than did the HRRR. A product in AWIPS highlighted regions where the fusion data is different than a zero hour model output would be beneficial for situational awareness and potentially for model output utilization.

– jbm

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Probsevere and Octane

Posted in OCTANE Speed Sandwich, ProbSevere, SPG2023 on by Kevin Thiel.

Widespread severe storms have been ongoing over portions of the southeast CONUS nearly all afternoon. ProbTor was doing a decent job with picking up on a couplet in Montgomery county Alabama around 1950Z. Overall it seemed that ProbTor V3 was giving higher tornado probabilities than V2. It was noted that V3 is based off of the HRRR whereas V2 is based off of the RAP. So that was rather interesting to me that the HRRR was potentially picking up on better areas of rotation.

Image of ProbSevere with ProbTor in the bottom left

Loop of tight couplet that ProbSevere V3 was picking up on

The other really interesting feature I noticed on the part of Octane. The Octane vertical divergence fields which is noted by a sharp gradient of blue in the coloring. This was occurring around the same times as cooling cloud tops that were seen on IR imagery. This also seemed to be a precursor to when storms began to intensify on radar. Along with that intensification was when a better couplet began appearing on radar and an increase in ProbTor V3. Overall I thought that those three correlations were rather neat to see in real time. If this correlation does continue to show up then this has the potential to be another important feature of the Octane product.

Loop of Probsevere with intensifying cluster of storms

Still image of Octane showing the “Blue” Divergence aloft features

Loop of cooling cloud tops via IR

– Tor Nader    

Tags: None

Strong to Severe Thunderstorms This Evening

Posted in LightningCast, OCTANE Speed Sandwich, SPG2023 on by Kevin Thiel.

Based on the latest satellite and radar data, a supercell thunderstorm has moved into the very northwestern corner of our cwa (northwest of Boise City). A Severe Thunderstorm Warning has been issued for the Boise City area with the greatest threat being large hail, damaging winds, and maybe an isolated tornado. Echo (cloud) tops are ranging between 40-50 kft. LightningCast data is showing lightning activity increasing over that area as CAPE values have increased to 2,000 J/kg.Based off the OCTANE Motion and Speed Sandwich product, storm top divergence is evident near Boise City with the tight color gradient with winds to the north of Boise City at 234 degrees vs 188 degrees south of Boise City. This activity is being driven by a surface low near the TX/OK state line. As this feature continues to shift to the east-northeast there is the potential for this storm to strengthen and/or for additional showers and thunderstorms to develop across the area.

-SATGLM_84

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DFW and TAE HWT Feedback for 6/13

Posted in NUCAPS, OCTANE Speed Sandwich, PHSnMWnABI, ProbSevere, SPG2023 on by Kevin Thiel.

General question overall, can the units be displayed in fraction form instead of with a (-1 or –2)?  Such as m/s instead of m*s-1?

PHS

Can temperature units be in F or even C instead of K?

Is 0-1 KM bulk shear AGL?

Could the bulk shear be in knots instead of m/s?

Can the bulk shear vectors and mean cloud wind vector (or 850-300mb wind) also be plotted?  This can help with determining storm mode. 

The PHS had storm coverage well matched with radar when simulation started.  However it was about 3 rows of counties too far north than what actually was happening.  This led me to believe that all the other data with PHS was also shifted north for what was actually happening.

Could mixed layer CAPE/CINH be added to the stability menu?  I think SPC’s mesoanalysis page defaults mixed layer to 100mb.  We use mixed layer CAPE quite frequently at our office.

Having DCAPE as a viewable product would be very helpful to diagnose a severe wind threat from supercells.

Noticed the PHS surfaced based CAPE/CINH matched quite well with mesoanalysis except for the CAPE/CINH just north of FL.  Both images are from 21z.

LightningCast

Helped maintain awareness about the overall threat for lightning, especially on the outskirts of the storm.

NUCAPS

Noticed the ML CAPE was much further east than what happened.  Of course this was from the morning overpass, not the afternoon one.

Did notice that the ML CAPE was lower than the surface based and MU CAPE.  Was going to look at a NUCAPS sounding to determine why that may have been the case.  However was not able to do that due to no data aside from the morning run. ML CAPE is on the left, MU CAPE is on the right below.

Prob Severe

Is there a way to highlight which storm Prob Severe is showing the trends for?  When I am looping the radar with multiple storms on it (example image below), I quickly lose track of which storm I had the trend graph displayed for.  Really like the ability to look at the trends graphically through AWIPS instead of having to go to the webpage to do so.

Noticed the readout only displayed above the pointer, not below.  The right image is what happened when I tried to sample the Prob Severe data.

Could there be an option to select the different fields we want Prob Severe/Hail/Tor/Wind to show?  There is a lot of data there, good data, but at the same time too much to look at during storm interrogation.

Does ProbTor calculate QLCS tornado probability?  This would help build confidence for issuing these kind of tornado warnings because the environment can change so rapidly from one radar scan to the next.

OCTANE

This helped me really see the updraft divergence of the cells.  This was in deep layer shear environment of 20 kts.  Neat to see the divergence weakening on the middle bottom cell in the upper left pane weaken as the cloud top temperatures warmed for that cell, confirming that the updraft was weakening.

– Rainman

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