Regional and Mesoscale Meteorology Branch

CIRA is demonstrating several products at this year’s Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT).  The HWT is a week-long workshop 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 micrometer 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 first of three sessions of the HWT completed May 1 and included forecasters from Boise, ID; Fairbanks, AK; Nashville, TN; and Pueblo, CO. (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)