1. Travis Smith, Jidong Gao, Kristin Calhoun, Darrel Kingfield, Chenghao Fu, David Stensrud, Greg Stumpf & a cast of dozens NSSL / CIMMS Warn-on-Forecast real-time 3DVAR in the Hazardous Weather Testbed

2. 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.

3. EWP 2012 Spring Experiment Timeline 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 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

4. 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 datasets and issue warnings via WarnGen Domain Manager for Subsetting Experimental Datasets 10 Floating Radar Product Generators for Level-III Data Generation Flexible Environment Allowing Any WFO to be Used in Operations Additional Features:

5. Some available products (AWIPS2) Max Updraft Max Divergence above 8km Simulated Reflectivity 3D Wind field (barbs, streamlines, color fill)

6. Some available products (AWIPS2) 0-3 km Max Vorticity Updraft Helicity Time accumulations (tracks) of Maximum Vorticity, Updraft Helicity, and Updraft Speed

7. Real-time 3DVAR supercells 2010-2012 Automated tracking / data mining (Lakshmanan et al) Max 3-7km vertical vorticity > 0.01 s-1 Lifetime 60 minutes or more 218 total 85 w/ tornado(s) 176 w/ other report

8. Number of radars used in analysis Radars within 230 km of an analyzed storm cell

9. Storm distribution by range to nearest radar 5-minute time steps

10. Colman Co, TX: 2250 UTC, 11 June 2012 Max Updraft + 1 km winds Storm-top Divergence Updraft Helicity MR/MS Hail Size (MESH)

11. Colman Co, TX: 2255 UTC, 11 June 2012 Max Updraft + 1 km winds Storm-top Divergence Updraft Helicity MR/MS Hail Size (MESH)

12. Colman Co, TX: 2300 UTC, 11 June 2012 Max Updraft + 1 km winds Storm-top Divergence Updraft Helicity MR/MS Hail Size (MESH)

13. Max Updraft Speed versus MR/MS hail size estimate All cases: R = 0.39 w/ 95% confidence interval of +/- 0.05

14. Max updraft speed W(ms -1 )

15. Vorticity versus single- radar azimuthal shear All cases: R = 0.75 w/ 95% confidence interval of +/- 0.02.

16. Updraft Helicity Distribution

18. Receiving Feedback Surveys Live-Blogging Forecasters can provide their pre-warning decision making thoughts and images in real-time Forecasters providing feedback on the strengths/weaknesses of the products Dedicated face-to-face time between forecasters and developers on the evaluated products Present summary of results to a wide audience Weekly debriefing and WDTB webinar

19. 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

20. “highlighted the most intense areas of the storm” provided “information on cycling mesocylones” Favorite products: Updraft intensity Vertical Vorticity Storm-top divergence Updraft Helicity

21. More “efficient to view than existing algorithms” to diagnosis storm intensity and rotation Forecaster Feedback Favorite products: Updraft intensity Vertical Vorticity Storm-top divergence Updraft Helicity

22. 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 Forecaster Feedback

23. Other related work “Virtual Volume Scan” radar data to put input data on the same timing as 3DVAR processing. Improved radar QC

24. 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/