Southern Thunder Workshop

1
Southern Thunder Workshop

• Fort Worth, Texas
• July 25-27, 2005

2
Southern ThunderWorkshop Goals

• Bring total lightning data and product producers
  together with the product and decision-making
  consumers
• Form collaborations to advance scientific
  understanding of thunderstorm processes
• Develop and evaluate nowcasting/short-term
  forecasting and warning decision-making
  applications that use total lightning in an
  operational environment

3
Southern ThunderWorkshop Outcomes

• 3 Breakout Groups with moderators to address
  tasks, issues, priorities, roles/responsibilities,
  schedules in the following areas
• Product Definition and Generation- Nick
  Demetriades/Vaisala, Inc.
• Detection Efficiency, Performance Metrics,
  Accuracy- Bill Rison/NMT
• Management of WES Cases, Training, and
  Assessments- Jason Burks/NWSFO HUN

4
AMS Annual MeetingJanuary 9-13, 2005, San Diego

• Recap of Issues
• AWIPS enhancements to improve LMA/LDAR product
  utility-(e.g., SCIT cell tracking, trending,
  cross-sections, visualizations)
• Simplified collaboration management and
  communication to prioritize, schedule and
  complete joint tasks
• Survey value and total lightning benchmarking
• WES Cases

5
NWS Severe Weather Technology WorkshopJuly
12-14, 2005 Silver Spring

• Meeting Recap and Looking to the Future
• AWIPS
• Long list of proposed upgrades- 140 items on wish
  list- already in the queue autonowcaster, WDSII
  too costly to integrate- will transition bits and
  pieces into operational suite
• Dont expect any near-term help for lightning
  needs
• AWIPS recompete underway
• NEXRAD All-tilts primary radar product used for
  warning
• Warn on Forecast
• Warnings to reaffirm forecasts, a continuum of
  information
• Tornado/Severe Lead time Improvement- with a
  600M budget, NOAA is not going to get another
  30-60M to improve warning lead time by 5
  minutes, Don Wernly
• Short-comings- focus on event itself for warning
  decision making need to provide information to
  allow people to personalize their risk!

6
NWS Severe Weather Technology WorkshopJuly
12-14, 2005 Silver Spring

• Meeting Recap and Looking to the Future
• Dual-Polarization Upgrade to WSR88D
• Beta test 2008, 2-yr deployment
• Hydrometeor ID- potential sensor fusion
  opportunity with Lightning
• GOES-R
• Largest acquisition ever by Commerce, 2012 launch
• 84 algorithms and 152 products
• Baseline sensor suite includes Lightning Mapper-
  phase A RFP release before end of July
• Need for data/product integration, not enough
  good mesoscale data, warnings need to convey
  probability/impact on end user