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Warn-on-Forecast real-time 3DVAR in the Hazardous Weather Testbed. Travis Smith, Jidong Gao , Kristin Calhoun, Darrel Kingfield, Chenghao Fu, David Stensrud , Greg Stumpf & a cast of dozens NSSL / CIMMS. Overview.
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Warn-on-Forecast real-time 3DVAR in the Hazardous Weather Testbed Travis Smith, JidongGao, Kristin Calhoun, Darrel Kingfield, Chenghao Fu, David Stensrud, Greg Stumpf & a cast of dozens NSSL / CIMMS
Overview • Initial demonstration of real-time data assimilation ability to NWS forecasters. (2010-2012) • Simulated warning operations (2011-2012) • Comparison of 3DVAR data to single-radar and MR/MS severe weather algorithms.
EWP 2012 Spring Experiment Timeline Overview Training Schedule Virtual WES technology and training gave participants exposure to products offsite This allowed Monday to be an operations day, maximizing time for forecaster feedback • 5 weeks of real-time operations • 4-6 visiting forecasters per week (28 total) • Product training prior to arrival • Leverage NWS Weather Event Simulator (WES) • New this year • Monday: 1pm – 9pm • EWP Orientation and real-time operations • Tuesday-Thursday: 8-hour flex shift • Start-time dependent on yesterday’s forecast • Ops start:12pm – 3pm • Ops end: 8pm – 11pm • Friday: 9am – 1pm • Debrief, discussion, and NWS/partners webinar
New In 2012: AWIPS-2 • NWS Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System 2 (AWIPS-2) is the next generation operational forecasting platform • Provides a familiar environment for the forecasters to evaluate the datasetsand issue warnings via WarnGen Additional Features: 10 Floating Radar Product Generators for Level-III Data Generation Domain Manager for SubsettingExperimental Datasets Flexible Environment Allowing Any WFO to be Used in Operations
Some available products (AWIPS2) Max Updraft Max Divergence above 8km Simulated Reflectivity 3D Wind field (barbs, streamlines, color fill)
Some available products (AWIPS2) Time accumulations (tracks) of Maximum Vorticity, Updraft Helicity, and Updraft Speed 0-3 km Max Vorticity Updraft Helicity
Real-time 3DVAR supercells 2010-2012 218 total 85 w/ tornado(s) 176 w/ other report • Automated tracking / data mining (Lakshmanan et al) • Max 3-7km vertical vorticity > 0.01 s-1 • Lifetime 60 minutes or more
Number of radars used in analysis Radars within 230 km of an analyzed storm cell
Storm distribution by range to nearest radar 5-minute time steps
Colman Co, TX: 2250 UTC, 11 June 2012 Max Updraft + 1 km winds Storm-top Divergence Updraft Helicity MR/MS Hail Size (MESH)
Colman Co, TX: 2255 UTC, 11 June 2012 Max Updraft + 1 km winds Storm-top Divergence Updraft Helicity MR/MS Hail Size (MESH)
Colman Co, TX: 2300 UTC, 11 June 2012 Max Updraft + 1 km winds Storm-top Divergence Updraft Helicity MR/MS Hail Size (MESH)
Max Updraft Speed versus MR/MS hail size estimate All cases: R= 0.39 w/ 95% confidence interval of +/- 0.05
Max updraft speed W(ms-1)
Vorticity versus single-radar azimuthal shear All cases: R= 0.75 w/ 95% confidence interval of +/- 0.02.
Receiving Feedback Surveys Live-Blogging Weekly debriefing and WDTB webinar Forecasters can provide their pre-warning decision making thoughts and images in real-time Dedicated face-to-face time between forecasters and developers on the evaluated products Present summary of results to a wide audience Forecasters providing feedback on the strengths/weaknesses of the products
Forecaster Feedback Favorite products: Updraft intensity Vertical Vorticity Storm-top divergence Updraft Helicity Useful when “trying to diagnose a large number of storms” and “sitting on the fence” (about issuing a warning)
Forecaster Feedback Favorite products: Updraft intensity Vertical Vorticity Storm-top divergence Updraft Helicity “highlighted the most intense areas of the storm” provided “information on cycling mesocylones”
Forecaster Feedback Favorite products: Updraft intensity Vertical Vorticity Storm-top divergence Updraft Helicity More “efficient to view than existing algorithms” to diagnosis storm intensity and rotation
Forecaster Feedback Real-time data Issues: Data Latency (approx 5 min) Distance from Radar (lack of low-level input) Bad data quality leads to bad 3DVAR side lobe contamination, improper dealiasing
Other related work “Virtual Volume Scan” radar data to put input data on the same timing as 3DVAR processing. Improved radar QC
Online resources • 3DVAR real-time and archive images: • http://tiny.cc/3DVAR • EWP web site: • http://ewp.nssl.noaa.gov • EWP Blog: • https://secure.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/ewp/blog/ • Archived WDTB webinars available: • http://www.wdtb.noaa.gov/resources/HWT-EWP/