Regional and Mesoscale Meteorology Branch

On the evening of June 1st, Hungjui Yu (CIRA) and Taiga Tsukada (CIRA) participated in the 15th International Precipitation Conference (IPC15) pre-conference Asia Virtual Workshop. Hungjui Yu was invited as one of the panel speakers, while Taiga Tsukada served in the organizing committee alongside the former CIRA employee Yoonjin Lee. The two-hour workshop brought together six invited panel speakers from Korea, Taiwan, Japan, India, and the United States, as well as more than 85 participants from around the world, to share their research on precipitation and discuss key challenges in the field. The first half of the workshop featured research presentations from each panel speaker, where Hungjui Yu presented work related to NSF/CAIG project (Title: Bridging Weather, Climate, and AI/ML for Severe Storms). The second half consisted of a panel discussion and audience Q&A. The workshop sparked focused yet substantive discussions on current challenges and future international collaboration, and is expected to contribute to the development of stronger ties within the global research community. (POC: Taiga Tsukada, CIRA,  taiga.tsukada@colostate.edu; Hungjui Yu, CIRA, hungjui@colostate.edu). Funding: NSF/CAIG.

CIRA is demonstrating several products at this year’s Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT).  The Final Week of the 2026 Hazardous Weather Testbed. HWT consists of three, week-long workshops for National Weather Service forecasters and product developers.  During the week the forecasters evaluate the demonstrated products’ usefulness in forecasting aspects of deep convection: initiation, strength, organization, hazards, etc.  The forecasters interact with the product developers concerning the use of the products while examining the real-time weather during the week.  CIRA’s products this year can be divided into two categories, synthetic imagery and optical flow products.  In anticipation of the upcoming GeoXO GXI instrument, synthetic imagery at 0.865, 0.91 and 5.15 micrometers are being created using output from forecasts from the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh model.  The channels are used to track low-level moisture, which is useful for forecasting convective initiation and maintenance.  The optical flow products come from CIRA’s Optical flow Code for Tracking, Atmospheric motion vector, and Nowcasting Experiments (OCTANE) suite and include cloud-drift motion (speed and direction) products, cloud-top cooling products, as well as a MesoAnywhere product.  The final of three sessions of the HWT completed June 5 and included forecasters from Anchorage, AK; Duluth, MN; Norman, OK; Spokane, WA; and Guam (POCs: J. Haynes, J. Dostalek, J. Apke, John.Haynes@colostate.edu, Jack.Dostalek@colostate.edu, Jason.Apke@colostate.edu, CIRA, Funding: GeoXO, GOES-R PG)