Understanding Oklahoma’s Weather and Climate: The Data, the Tools, and the Technology

1. Oklahoma SCAUG User Group Meeting 3 June 2010 Understanding Oklahoma’s Weather and Climate: The Data, the Tools, and the Technology Jeffrey B. Basara Director of Research Oklahoma Climatological Survey University of Oklahoma

2. A state entity with specific legislative mandates housed at the University of Oklahoma in the National Weather Center. • 1. To acquire, process, and disseminate, in the most cost effect way possible, all weather and climate information which is or could be of value to policy and decision makers in the state; • 2. To act as the representative of the state in all climatological and meteorological manners both within and outside the state when requested to do so by the legislative or executive branches of the state government; • 3. To prepare, publish, and disseminate regular climate summaries for those individuals, agencies, or organizations whose activities are related to the welfare of the state and are affected by climate and weather. • 4. To conduct and report on studies of weather and climate phenomena of significant socio-economic importance to the state. The Oklahoma Climatological Survey

3. A state entity with specific legislative mandates housed at the University of Oklahoma in the National Weather Center. • 5. To evaluate the significance of natural and man-made deliberate and inadvertent changes or modifications in important features of the climate and weather affecting the state, and to report this information to those agencies and organizations in the state who are likely to be affected by such changes or modifications; and • 6. To maintain and operate the Oklahoma Mesonetwork, a statewide environmental monitoring network which is overseen by the Mesonet Steering Committee, comprised of representatives of the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University according to its Memorandum of Agreement. The director of the Oklahoma Climatological Survey shall be accountable for executing the policies of the Mesonet Steering Committee. The Oklahoma Climatological Survey

4. Historically, the assessment of climate in Oklahoma is based on two observed variables – temperature and precipitation. Background – The Climate of Oklahoma

5. Historically, the assessment of climate in Oklahoma is based on two observed variables – temperature and precipitation. Background – The Climate of Oklahoma

6. Historically, the assessment of climate in Oklahoma is based on two observed variables – temperature and precipitation. Background – The Climate of Oklahoma

7. http://climate.ok.gov

8. Weather and climate network covering 181,186 square kilometers-- Planned 1986-1991 • Commissioned in 1994 • Joint project between the Oklahoma State University and the University of Oklahoma. • Atmospheric measurements with 5-minute resolution, available to users within 5 minutes of collection • Subsurface temperature and moisture measurements at various depths • Over 4 billion observations archived Background

9. 120 remote weather stations • 3300 sensors and 250 computers linked • About 700,000 observations ingested each day • 2-way communications • Solar powered • 30-day storage in on-site dataloggers • Produce ~63,000 products and files for users each day Technical Details

10. Real-time Productswww.mesonet.org

11. Products Using Archived Data

12. Weatherscope Visualization Software

13. Earthstorm: K-12 Outreach • 150 teachers educated; Over 5000 students educated to use Mesonet data in the classroom • OK-First: Public Safety Outreach • 450 emergency managers educated who rely on Mesonet data and services • OK-FIRE: Fire Manager Outreach • 125 Oklahoma fire officials educated to use Mesonet fire products • Agweather: Agriculture Outreach • 100s of farmers and ranchers educated how to use Mesonet products and models in their farm and ranch decisions Outreach

14. Outreach

15. OKC Micronet • Network of 40 stations (4 Mesonet Sites, 36 Traffic Signal Sites): ~3 kmstation spacing. • 1-minute Data Collection – Real-time and archive quality assurance (QA). • 5+ year effort. • True collaboration with Oklahoma City. • All sites were deployed by 1 June 2008 and the network was commissioned on 8 November 2008. • 640,000+ observations are collected each day (including the 4 Mesonet stations).

16. Wifi Node Traffic Signal Station Ethernet Cable

18. Urban Heat Island Example • 11 December 2008 • 7:00 am CDT • Observations at 9 m • Temperature = oC • Weak Wind Case

19. OKC Micronet Webpage – okc.mesonet.org

20. Pilot study to provide more realistic estimates of hail occurrence. • An applied climatology of supercell thunderstorms and squall lines. OCS GIS Examples

21. OCS was posed with the question “How much hail occurs?” • The “right” answer didn’t exist • The Research Plan: • Using the 15 WSR-88D radars in and around Oklahoma, determine how much hail occurred over a 3 year period. • Weather Decisions Technologies Inc. (WDT; a partner for this project) has a product called HailTrax, which allows hail swaths to be produced from radar data. • Use the Hailswath algorithm from WDT to create hail swaths for this period. • Combine GIS and Radar Dataas a new method to increase our understanding of the physical processes. Hail Example

22. Recent Hail

23. Contoured Example for Significant ( > 2.00”) and Severe Hail ( > 0.75”) Raw Hailswath Output Hail Example – 5 April 2003

24. 2003-Significant

25. 2001-2003-Significant

26. Develop a GIS storm climatology dataset of supercell and squall line storm modes across Oklahoma during 1994-2003 to quantify the spatial occurrence of storms. • Determine the spatial characteristics of each specific storm mode: • Where are high frequency maxima? Minima? • Where do storms most frequently initiate? • What are typical storm motions over different months? • Determine potential meteorological applications of the GIS dataset Supercell / Squall Line Project

27. Level-II and Level-III radar data were obtained from the NCDC online archive for sites nearest storm report data at the corresponding times for all 332 events and viewed using GRLevel2 and the NCDC Java NEXRAD Viewer Radar Data

28. May 3, 1999 KTLX radar at 00:07:25 UTC on 4 May 1999 Example Supercell Tracking

29. May 27, 2001 KTLX radar at 03:53:54 UTC on 28 May 2001 Example Squall Line Tracking

30. Tracking Points Cell Tracks Supercell Tracks Supercell Swaths GIS Representation of Supercells

31. Tracking Points Squall Line Tracks Squall Line Polygons Squall Line Polygon GIS Representation of Squall Lines

32. January February March April May June July August September October November December All Months Supercell Monthly Spatial Frequencies

33. All Supercell Tracks Supercell Track Density

34. January February March April May June July August September October November December All Months Squall Line Monthly Spatial Frequencies

35. All Squall Line Initiation Lines Squall Line Initiation Density

36. All Squall Line Termination Lines Squall Line Termination Density

37. Basara, J. B., D. R. Cheresnick, D. Mitchell, and B. G. Illston, 2007: An analysis of Severe Hail Swaths in the Southern Plains of the United States. Trans. in GIS, 11, 531-554. Basara, J. B., B. G. Illston, C. A. Fiebrich, P. Browder, C. Morgan, J. P. Bostic, A. McCombs, R. A. McPherson, A. J. Schroeder, and K. C. Crawford, 2010: The Oklahoma City Micronet. Meteorological Applications, DOI:10.1002/met.189. Hocker, J. E., and J. B. Basara, 2008: A ten year spatial climatology of squall line storms across Oklahoma. Int. J. Climatol.,28, 765-775. Hocker, J. E., and J. B. Basara, 2008: A geographic information systems based analysis of supercells across Oklahoma. J. Appl. Meteor. and Climatol.,47, 1518-1538. McPherson, R.A., C.A. Fiebrich, K.C. Crawford, R.L. Elliott, J.R. Kilby, D.L. Grimsley, J.E. Martinez, J.B. Basara, B.G. Illston, D.A. Morris, K.A. Kloesel, S.J. Stadler, A.D. Melvin, A.J. Sutherland, H. Shrivastava, J.D. Carlson, J.M. Wolfinbarger, J.P. Bostic, and D.B. Demko, 2007: Statewide Monitoring of the Mesoscale Environment: A Technical Update on the Oklahoma Mesonet. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 24, 301–321. Important References

38. Questions?