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Chasing April Showers

Chasing April Showers. WCD Friday 4 th May, 2012 Thorwald Stein DYMECS research assistant. Convective storms on Wednesday 11 th April, 2012. *Not by running around with your camera phone. Chasing April Showers.

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Chasing April Showers

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  1. Chasing April Showers WCD Friday 4th May, 2012 Thorwald SteinDYMECS research assistant Convective storms on Wednesday 11th April, 2012 *Not by running around with your camera phone

  2. Chasing April Showers “This April is the wettest in the UK in records which date back to 1910, according to early Met Office figures to the 29th of the month.” http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2011/wettest-april-on-record Other interesting facts for April 2012: * Much of the rainfall has been focused on the south of the UK, with England seeing more rainfall than Scotland. * Despite the heavy rain experienced this month, sunshine amounts so far this month have not been far off the average.

  3. Chasing April Showers DYMECS Research questions • How tall are these showers? • How big are these showers? • How much rain (or hail!) falls out? • How do these showers evolve? • And what did these showers look like in the forecast? Scan them with the ChilboltonAdvanced Meteorological Radar, the largest* of itskind in the world! * http://www.stfc.ac.uk/Chilbolton/24821.aspx DYMECS – The Dynamical and Microphysical Evolution of Convective Storms with Emilie Carter, Carol Halliwell, Kirsty Hanley, Robin Hogan, Humphrey Lean, Andy Macallan, John Nicol, and Bob Plant

  4. Chasing April Showers Will it be a good day for scanning showers? Forecasts for Wednesday 11th April, 3pm,show it will be!

  5. Chasing April Showers Tracking step 1: • Take 5-minute Nimrod rainfall radar data from MetOffice (1 km resolution) • Label individual rainfall regions and store all its properties (location, speed, max rainfall, size)

  6. Chasing April Showers Tracking step 2: • Score storms by relevant properties (bigger storms, heavier rainfall regions are interesting) • Pick a small number of storms to prioritize and send commands to the Chilbolton radar

  7. Chasing April Showers RHI (Range Height Indicator) scans through convective cores show the heightof the storms. Doppler velocity measurements can be used to derive vertical velocities in the convective updraft.

  8. Chasing April Showers PPI (Plan Position Indicator) scans at different elevations can be combinedinto 3D volumes.

  9. Chasing April Showers PPI (Plan Position Indicator) scans at different elevations can be combinedinto 3D volumes. Several 3D volumes of the same storm can be used to track its evolutionin size, peak reflectivities, and height.

  10. Chasing April Showers • Database of RHI and PPI scans for convective days • Statistics on storm height, size, peak rain to evaluate forecast model • Run model at higher resolution (Emilie Carter) • … or with different microphysics e.g. hail (Kirsty Hanley) Visit our website! http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~dymecs Or read today’s WCD blog!

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