The P-3 aircraft is working a storm that is in the area of Winn LA… now tornado warned. This storm is heading for our subdomain… should be in our ground-based Doppler coverage in about 30 minutes.

STATUS: Down

The IOP is completed. Several tornadic supercells were observed, with a number of tornadoes occurring. The level of damage is not clear yet.

We succeeded in collecting many volumes of multiple-Doppler data involving ground-based and airborne radars.

Many soundings were obtained, at an hourly interval, to document the evolution of the environment.

The next potential for operations appears to be toward next weekend.

STATUS: Operating.

One supercell with a low-level meso is moving through our multi-Doppler coverage northeast of Huntsville; the P-3 has been scanning this storm for most of its life. No tornadoes from this so far… lots of hail. This is the kind of data set we were seeking this year to test approaches to measuring 3D winds using multiple simultaneous Doppler radars.

Another supercell is forming south of Huntsville and moving toward Sand Mountain, also in good multi-Doppler coverage. This provides an alternative target for the P-3 aircraft if they have trouble scanning the northern storm.

New storms are forming in MS and will move into AL in a couple of hours. Low-level hodographs are starting to lengthen. A PDS tornado watch has been issued for all of our study area.

We are operating. All five ground-based radars are scanning, and the P-3 aircraft is attempting to find a way to scan the storm in NW AL. This storm has a tornado warning, and we suspect it will stay connected to the surface warm front as it continues east toward the Huntsville area in about an hour. Thereafter, it will enter our Doppler radar domain.

We still anticipate another round late this afternoon/evening.

We have just finished our planning meeting. A number of sounding and profiling systems will be deployed across northern AL in the morning on Monday. We still expect a line of supercells to initiate around 2 PM in far eastern MS, and move east across northern AL at about 50 mph. The NOAA P-3 aircraft will take off from Huntsville at 2 PM. We expect the supercells to pass Huntsville around sunset, and then move on into Georgia. We will have five radars on the ground… ARMOR, two SMART-radars, MAX, and the Hytop WSR-88D, and these will be covering all of NE AL and far southern TN, generally east of I-65.

STATUS:IOP

We have moved the U. Oklahoma SMART-Radars to the northern AL subdomain at Huntsville, and all the needed platforms should be available for a mission tomorrow (Mon 19th).

Despite small run-to-run fluctuations, the numerical guidance continues to show the potential for tornadic supercells in the domain tomorrow. Some significant tornadoes may occur. This overall theme has been present in the forecasts since Thursday morning, but that’s no guarantee that it will come about.

I sent a special heads-up email this morning to a group of more than 20 researchers in the social, behavioral, and engineering sciences because many of these folks are engaged in studying how the lead-up to tornado events influences reactions to an actual threat, and many of them need to do research immediately following tornadoes or tornado warnings. We all hope for no suffering, while still being ready to learn how to reduce or prevent the suffering caused by future events.

Right now, we are expecting convection to develop in eastern MS around 2 PM, and sweep east across AL and into GA by sunset. The P-3 aircraft is scheduled to take off at 2 PM on Monday.

I will try to post an update just prior to our observing mission… midday Monday.

STATUS: IOP in progress

As of 2 PM CT, the NOAA P-3 aircraft is in the air.

Today’s situation seems to pick up where the last two seasons left off: very difficult to forecast the potential for tornadic storms in the Southeast, even a few hours in advance. For several days, the models had been painting a pretty consistent picture of the highest potential for research-worthy storms across N LA. Last night, the convection-allowing guidance such as the HRRR and the NAM-Nest (NAM-3km) jumped to a consistent idea of very little convection across N LA, but a band of storms with rotating updrafts moving across central AR this evening, and heading SE toward central MS tonight. This pretty much is smack dab in between our two subdomains (near Monroe, LA and Huntsville, AL).

Of course the P-3 can cover a lot of ground quickly, but the challenges of planning those missions is huge. They can only carry a certain amount of fuel, and obviously they have to spend a certain amount of time on the ground between missions. So the P-3 scientists have to decide today what they plan on doing tomorrow. And since there are targetable storms possible tomorrow in southern AL and GA, they opted to go ahead and fly at 2 PM today on an 8 hour mission, and have scheduled a mission for tomorrow as well.

As I write, the interesting storms are forming in eastern OK, and we will watch them closely to see if 1) they develop southeastward into AR early enough for the P-3 to study them, and 2) if they are showing signs of developing down toward the Monroe area where our ground-based radars are waiting.