Category: SZA Imagery

Lots of Lightning

Posted in Lightning Stoplight, LightningCast, OCTANE Speed Sandwich, SPG2026, Synthetic GXI, SZA Imagery on by Kevin Thiel.

Got a little more time in with both LightningCast and Stoplight today being over RLX’s area. Learned today that you can add range rings in the Stoplight product. Kelley walked us through how to make adjustments to our display, such as changing the basemap and adding overlays if preferred. Feedback: One thing I noticed while using Stoplight today was I changed tabs for a little bit, came back and noticed that most of the pixels had disappeared. However when I zoomed out some, they re-appeared. I gave an early “all clear” because of this. Granted lightning was definitely on the downward trend, but once I zoomed out and the pixel repopulated, it repopulated within the 10-mile radius. Not sure what happened there if it was user error or what. Also not sure if this is something that can be added or not, but the ability to input a lat/lon would be awesome!

LightningCast: LightningCast did a really great job today, especially V2 with the ABI+MRMS. We observed that this version detected lightning much earlier over eastern Pennsylvania compared to V1. Our storms were more low-topped with much less instability, and we saw LightningCast pick up on the probabilities very quickly even when there was hardly a radar echo. The biggest feedback from today’s session was a lack of GLM data appearing in the Super Dashboard even though GLM data was directly over our DSS event in AWIPS. Lena explained that there are different GLM sources, and since my group was using density, that’s why it wasn’t showing up in the dashboard (at least I think that was the reason?) Regardless, we shared the feedback that it would be nice if those things matched to prevent confusion for the forecaster. On the plus side – I learned even more about GLM today!

OCTANE– Since we were in an area with lower instability, Jason recommended viewing CONUS OCTANE Speed as shear was good in the area. I was amazed at how well this product highlighted the convection. At a quiet point, we jumped down to Texas to observe the firing supercells in the SW, and noticed OCTANE had cooling cloud tops around 5 minutes before lightning cast picked up on it, so that was also an interesting observation. I continue to really, really enjoy using the CTC product with LightningCast overlaid. I would integrate this today into my normal every day DSS procedures in AWIPS if I could.

Figure 1: OCTANE CONUS Speed over WFO RLX

SZA played a huge role today, too, in helping me see the clouds at a higher brightness for a longer time than I normally would! The images below are just down right impressive. I don’t know any forecaster who wouldn’t want more time to have better visualization on satellite.

Figure 2: Pictured left: OCTANE Meso (no SZA), pictured right: OCTANE CONUS (with SZA) at the same time of 22:37Z

I had a harder time using GXI imagery today given all of the cloud cover already in place at the start of ops. It was difficult to make out areas of moisture on the 0.91. However I was still able to pick up on better areas of moisture with the 5.15

Figure 3: GXI imagery at 18Z focusing over WFO RLX

Just to add: Graphic created today for DSSm posted in Slack.

-simoom

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Overview: Week 1, Day 3

Posted in Daily Summaries, Lightning Stoplight, LightningCast, SPG2026, SZA Imagery on by Kevin Thiel.

10AM

Day three kicked off with a loaded discussion, with OCTANE, Synthetic GXI Imagery, and the Lightning Stoplight Tool taking center stage. One interesting topic came from the presentation of Lightning Stoplight, and how to interpret regions with no data next to pixels in the 0-10 minute range (red). Would a site manager interpret that area as ‘safe’? This also led into a discussion on how forecasters would present these data to partners, with most in the group stating that they wouldn’t feel comfortable giving the Lightning Stoplight or LightningCast tools to EMs without considerable on-site guidance or training.

The forecast discussion was split four ways between Texas, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Colorado. We ended up going to the San Antonio, TX (EWX) office for a supercell and large hail threat, and the Charleston, WV (RLX) office for widely scattered convection with a marginal wind and hail threat. Forecast groups were also now tasked with two mock-DSS events, forcing them to monitor multiple events on the LightningCast superdashboard product. The Lightning Stoplight tool was not in AWIPS until 21 Z, but forecasters were advised to use the web display from NASA SPoRT.

1PM

I started the day by going west to Hawaii to collect SZA imagery at sunrise from GOES-West and sharing these with the forecasters. How much more ‘usable’ information can SZA provide compared the traditional imagery, and how much sooner if possible?

4 PM

After several discussion regarding DSS, LightningCast, and how to interpret the Synthetic GeoXO Imagery, we were able to get the Lightning Stoplight product into our AWIPS-II! Forecasters stated in the morning discussions they want to immediately union these data with LightningCast, and some procedures were made to help them out at the beginning of ops tomorrow. I created an animation of the Lightning Stoplight that includes GLM, ENTLN flashes, and ABI Clean-IR imagery. I set the opacity of the Lightning Stoplight to 80% so the colors stand out, but you can still see some detail underneath. We’ll see how well the forecasters like this information and if they make any new displays. This animation shows the dissipation of a thunderstorm on the western side of the scene, and you can see the loss of GLM FED data, while the Lightning Stoplight product changes colors and shrinks in size to indicate a decreasing lightning hazard.


The day ended with a quick look at sea-breeze thunderstorms in eastern Cuba for the SZA imagery. Its interesting to see the low clouds and how long they stay present in the SZA’s modified DCPD RGB. We’ll see how the forecasters like this in the morning.

 

Kevin

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Tuesdays HWT

Posted in DSS, Lightning Stoplight, LightningCast, SPG2026, SZA Imagery on by Kevin Thiel.

Main issue today was to do IDSS near Delhi MS. We were using lightning cast and lightning stoplight. We were also issued a few warnings. Fortunately, we had a storm move over the region so we were quite busy for at least an hour or so.

Our team created some loops of the data. A long loop of GLM and ltg prob is below …

 

 

 

The blinking circle was our DSS site. Lena was our “emergency manager” for the day.

We had thorough conversations with Lena and Kevin regarding using the tow lightning products in operations. We agreed that the products are very useful, but would not work all that well to send these products directly to our partners.

Note that we had a thorough conversation on the slack channel and you can follow the “blow by blow” discussions there.

We also had a great conversation with Lena regarding how we interact with our emergency managers.

Regarding Lightncast, I believe that the planview products are good. I prefer looking at the imagery like this though >>>>

 

Note that the data probabilities on the awips image above go from 0% to 100 percent.  Why is it important to show the data this way instead of contours? The reason is you can see the VERY beginning of when the ltg probs start to show up. Using contours, you have to wait until the 10% prob shows up. Note that I do not have sat pix imagery overlaid, The reason why I do this with AWIPS is I can have the sat pix data opened up in another panel and use the cursor to read the data. Also the contours (or the image for that matter) would get “lost” (or buried) within the colors of the sat pix imagery.

We used the Lightning Stoplight product today. This was helpful in letting us know when the last flash occurred in the 10, 20 and 30 increment time frame. However I am hesitant with sharing this directly with the EMs.

I envision that the Stoplight product and the LightningCast product will be married in the future, and this will make these two products more useful.

I can not say enough how valuable the lightningcast product is. Prior to this we did not have a good idea when lightning would be a threat, and would have to carefully watch radar data and do cross sections or monitor to -10C level. With lightningcast, you have the probabilities calculated for you in real time every minute (mesosector) or every 5 minutes for CONUS.(However waiting 5 minutes is wayyyyyyyy toooooo lonnnnnnnnnnnnng.

We talked about the SZA product. This is a no brainer and this satellite product should be implemented operationally as soon as possible. Being able to see the detail in the sat pix data towards sunset is priceless.

-Mesovortex

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Overview: Week 1, Day 2

Posted in Daily Summaries, SPG2026, SZA Imagery on by Kevin Thiel.

10AM

Day 2 of the experiment brought another Moderate Risk region from the SPC, driven by a 30% CIG 2 Hail outlook. Thunderstorms were expected to form along an advancing dry line, with a diffuse temperature and moisture gradient in place from southern Oklahoma to northern Alabama as of 15Z. After our morning debrief, the Fort Worth-Dallas office (FWD) was a pretty easy pick for us to target today. After more discussion, we decided our second WFO should be further east ahead of some early morning convection in the Jackson, MS (JAN) office. Unfortunately the Lightning Stoplight product continued to face ingest issues and was unavailable today, and we hope to have it in AWIPS tomorrow. In the meantime forecasters viewed that data on the SPoRT Lightning Viewer and in GR2Analyst.

1 PM

Forecasters today were tasked with issuing simulated Severe Thunderstorm and Tornado warnings in WarnGen on AWIPS-II, along with providing decision support for mock-events that we created for each office. Today FWD was tasked with mock-DSS for a Red River BBQ Cookoff near Gainesville, TX, and JAN was tasked with mock-DSS for a hazmat spill near Waverly, MS. Shortly after operations began, CI occurred just west of the FWD CWA, and thunderstorms were maturing just west of the JAN CWA. This gave everyone plenty of storms to observe, and the forecasters with the chance to issue warnings and communicate hazards through decision support.

I spent part of the day in ops viewing the SZA imagery product on the west coast shortly after sunrise. When comparing SZA data in a modified Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB against the traditional RGB, the differences are stark right at sunrise, and features stand out sooner. How much sooner is something we need to determine. There was a nice discussion in the morning about how SZA imagery may benefit WFOs in higher latitudes (main example: Alaska). I also compared the modified SZA RGB against CIRA’s GeoColor imagery, and found that more interesting than anything.

 

When zooming into the SZA imagery in north Texas, it appears the 0.69µm (channel 2) imagery has ‘gaps’ in highly reflective features. My first hypothesis is that the solar zenith adjustment is pushing reflectance factor values above 130% and creating plotting issues in AWIPS, but I feel like traditional ABI visible imagery saw similar artifacts in AWIPS after launch that had to be corrected.

Kevin

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Overview: Week 1, Day 1

Posted in Daily Summaries, Lightning Stoplight, LightningCast, SPG2026, Synthetic GXI, SZA Imagery on by Kevin Thiel.

9AM

Welcome to the testbed! Day 1 is usually when forecasters are just getting their feet wet with the products, but today they may get thrown into the deep end. The 13Z SPC Outlook features a Moderate Risk and large Enhanced-Slight Risk through the Mississippi Valley, driven by a 15% CIG2 threat. Forecasters will mostly be getting familiar with products and using AWIPS in cloud instances, but hopefully they will have plenty of good storms to observe today! Unfortunately we’re having issues getting the Lighting Stoplight tool into AWIPS, and it was only available online today.


1PM
We localized to Paducah, KY (PAH) and St. Louis, MO (LSX) with the expectation that semi-discrete thunderstorms would develop during our operations period. Unfortunately thunderstorms took too long to develop for PAH, but there was plenty of thunderstorms to the west across Missouri and north towards Illinois and Indiana.

We observed low level dry air from the Synthetic GXI data from a front and dry line that passed through western Oklahoma. It was interesting to compare the synthetic data from WVT and low(est) level water vapor at 5.15 µm against the observations from GOES-R in the split window difference and visible imagery at 0.64 µm. Some questions for the forecasters included how easy it was to identify features and boundaries in this clear-cut and more strongly forced scenario.

4PM

Later in the day our group also had a discussion about extremely large flashes as detected by GLM and the ground networks, and how (or if) they could be interpreted by products such as LightingCast or the Lighting Stoplight tool. Could LightningCast add lower probability contours? Would those contours add to noise and too many false alarms? How sensitive should users be to the appearance of probabilities?

6PM

To end the day, I saved off some animations of the SZA products. I tried adjust the Day Cloud Phase Distinction RGB recipe when including the Channel 2 and 5 SZA bands, so we will see how forecasters react to that product.
Kevin
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