In a more contaminated sky, it appears the mesoscale speed product handled low level flow better when compared to the CONUS Speed. In the CONUS direction, it showed more of an easterly cloud movement; that movement could imply the 5 minute data was getting more of an influence from a thin cirrus layer.

Figure 1: OCTANE CONUS Speed product (colder anvil tops were filtered out with the white scale)

Figure 2: OCTANE  Mesoscale  Speed image valid from the same time as Figure 1. This shows the more accurate low level flow.

-wxboi

The Octane Cloud Top Cooling product provided a strong indication of the continued southwestward development of storms in advance. While in the towering cumulus stage of development, the CTC indicated the stronger updrafts. Later on, those towering cumulus continued to develop into mature thunderstorms. While highlighting the areas that ended up growing, I didn’t notice it flagging any of the bubbling cumulus in areas where storms did not develop. This raises my confidence in the product as being able to use it to identify areas of greater concern. It may be worth noting that high level cirrus hid any potential updraft development in the southern portions of the area. However, in this specific case that proved to be non-consequential

Figure 1: OCTANE CONUS cloud top cooling at 18:51 zulu. Cloud top cooling can be seen on the line extending SW from the then dominant supercell.

Figure 2: Radar screenshot from roughly the same time as Figure 1.

Figure 3: The OCTANE CONUS cloud top cooling at 1911 zulu. Showering more development and continued signals on the SW flank.

Figure 4: Radar corresponding with Figure 3. Storms continued to develop and intensify in the same region highlighted 20 minutes prior in Figure 1.

-wxboi

Warm Sector and no Synoptic Forcing: Paducah Kentucky Edition

We started today with a very established capped warm sector. Dewpoints were in the upper 60s and low 70s across the CWA. MUCAPE values were in the 2000 to 3000 J/kg range with 0-1 km SRH around 250 m^2/s^2. The thermodynamic parameters had started off well, but an early afternoon filled with cumulus clouds may spoil the convective threat. None of the warm sector convection never had gotten a chance to get started, there were glimpses of potential, but would quickly fizzle out. This will change quickly into the evening as the cold front moves across the region, but it is out of the “operational period”.

Vertical Wind Profiles:

With much quieter weather this afternoon than anticipated, we were able to deep dive the various uses of OCTANE. One of those is looking at the vertical wind profile. At the 0-3 km layer there is consistent south-southwest motion, while the 3-6 km layer is moving west-southwest. This analysis allows us to create a sense of ground truth that we are able to compare with models.

Figure: Here in this image we have low clouds that are identified as this more brown color, while the higher clouds are in the green. In motion these clouds have a well defined hook vertical wind profile with the lower layers moving south-southwest and the higher layer moving west-southwest.

Figure: Here is the 22z RAP model hodegraph for the convection southeast of Marion in the previous figure. This paired with the satellite product listed above we are to say with good confidence that in Northwest Kentucky there is a well defined hooking hodograph.

Final Thoughts:

For a day filled with a firehouse of new techniques they all stood out with their uses. The common theme for me is confidence in the models and also the ground truth. Each of the techniques we were shown helped to build confidence in either direction. It will be interesting to see how effective these techniques are, when in a more normal “operations” setting filled with time and workload constraints.

-Blizzard