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Bite sized science: Hazardous Weather Testbed
Tag: Issue: Summer 2013
NSSL scientists heading to Florida to launch balloons into thunderstorms
NSSL scientists will launch instrumented balloons into north Florida thunderstorms as part of an ongoing University of Florida triggered lightning experiment for two weeks beginning July 28. The team hopes to characterize the microphysics and electrical structure of storms in which lightning is triggered and learn more about how lightning works.
NSSL will launch two balloons at a time. One balloon will carry a high-definition video particle imager and a Parsivel disdrometer to measure the number, size, and shape of liquid and frozen water particles, and the other will carry an electric field meter. Both will be tracked by GPS radiosondes which will also measure temperature, pressure, dewpoint and winds.
The University of Oklahoma’s Shared Mobile Atmospheric Research and Teaching Radars (SMART-R) will be making polarimetric observations of the storms. NSSL’s data will be used to help interpret the SMART-R’s polarimetric observations.
Researchers at the University of Florida in Gainesville have had an extensive long-standing program to launch wire-trailing rockets into storm clouds to trigger and study lightning initiation, lightning strikes, and radiation from lightning. This new effort will improve our understanding of lightning produced by thunderstorms, and provide an opportunity to study storms with more tropical characteristics than those observed in the southern Plains.
NSSL’s participation is part of a cooperative agreement with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that sponsors the University of Florida triggered lightning experiment near Gainesville, Fla.
The 2013 Flash Flood and Intense Rainfall experiment (FFaIR)
A team from NSSL will partner with the NOAA Hydrometeorological Testbed at the Weather Prediction Center to host the 1st annual Flash Flood and Intense Rainfall Experiment (FFaIR). FFaIR will explore using high-resolution atmospheric and hydrologic models to improve short-term forecasts of both precipitation amounts and flash flooding. The project runs from July 8-26, 2013.
NSSL’s Flooded Locations And Simulated Hydrographs (FLASH) system will be one of several modeling systems evaluated during FFaIR. The FLASH system uses radar-estimated rainfall from NSSL’s National Mosaic and QPE System (NMQ/Q2) as input into the CREST (Coupled Routing and Excess STorage) hydrologic model. FLASH then creates real-time 6-hour forecasts on a 1km grid that is updated every 15 minutes.
The 2013 FFaIR experiment will provide, for the first time, a pseudo-real time environment where participants from across the weather enterprise can explore the interface of meteorology and hydrology. Working together through the forecast process will foster collaboration between National Centers for Environmental Prediction, National Weather Service Forecast Offices, NOAA labs, and the academic community.