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00:00:00:00 – 00:00:22:28
Unknown
Okay, well, let’s go ahead and get started. Today we’re pleased to have Sheldon Cassels and, leading this visit. Satellite chat. He’s, retired from known as this and has, a wealth of experience at looking at, satellite imagery and particular, satellite imagery that depicts, moisture. So, without further ado, let’s turn it over to Sheldon.
00:00:23:01 – 00:00:51:17
Unknown
Thank you. Dan. I’m I’m really excited and pleased to do this, satellite chat. And especially since all the years that, I spent in the field analysis branch of NASA’s with four different types of satellite data and especially moisture. I’ve kind of, built a strong interest on the West Coast systems, even though I’ve lived on the East Coast practically all my life.
00:00:51:18 – 00:01:37:18
Unknown
So, a lot of learning is going on during my, the experiences when I worked for mastiffs and, they were kind of hit upon a few of those, with the various satellite products that are around them and how they got to be, this, title page, pretty much is, but a number of the different, selling moisture products that I’m going to briefly talk about in this, on satellite chat and, these are, these images are from, an event that happened just a few days ago where Seattle, WA, broke the record for daily rainfall, during, February 15th.
00:01:37:20 – 00:02:14:15
Unknown
And actually, it was the second, daily record breaker one for Seattle in this month. And, it’s been a pretty crazy, winter. And nonetheless, for the West Coast and I almost have to go back to the mid 2000 for anything like this, where the precipitation has been very widespread and heavy. Not just in one part of the West Coast, but, pretty much, from Washington state all the way down to, counties.
00:02:14:18 – 00:02:55:04
Unknown
Okay. Just a little bit of history about Pacific the water, back in the 1980s. If you are, older than 40, you remember that typical water chart? Where you had some of the water from way up stations and then over land and, really, that was about it. And, our, our interest and, really our understand the interest of water was, kind of my nude, and, but we knew that know moisture was very important, but, not a whole lot of information out over the ocean, the 1990s, the, satellite, how I started sort of being put up, which had, microwave
00:02:55:04 – 00:03:25:06
Unknown
sensors and, the products were developed, an algorithm to, soaks up the water over the oceans and, that, you know, look like that, resulted in, information interest, the word, the term atmospheric river, moisture transport, that opened up just off a whole bunch of information on some of the water, especially because now we could see it actually over the oceans.
00:03:25:09 – 00:04:00:16
Unknown
2000s. We started, learning more about some of the water when NOAA put up their, microwave instruments and, we started blending, multi satellite remote sensing, information, DPW, both over the ocean and land and the second half of the to the decade of the 2000. And now, and we’re, we’ve advanced further in the year, in the 20 tens with the addition of multi satellite land to the water over land and ocean.
00:04:00:18 – 00:04:35:20
Unknown
Looking at each layer’s contribution, again, moisture plumes were one of the first things we looked at in concentrations of highest moisture of the atmospheric river. When we started really, seeing more of some water from remote sensing of satellites and things like that. We learned to overlay eight 5700 millibar winds on the DPW. I learned in particular about winds that blew parallel the highest moisture leading to the heaviest precipitation.
00:04:35:22 – 00:05:09:06
Unknown
Even more, it’s kept those same highest moist moisture, highest winds are blowing through the highest moisture hitting the mountains perpendicular, to the greatest slope to produce even more, heavy precipitation. Then, it’s it’s in my in the 1990s. Glendive DPW in 2000. And now that the layers of the water we, we carry those first two bullets now two layers of water to find out that, two or more layers with the above characteristics can produce excessive rainfall.
00:05:09:09 – 00:05:32:23
Unknown
So excessive precipitation, three or more layers. And the converging near one area many, many times focuses on leaks where the excessive precipitation is deep and a particular layer is contribution to the heavy precipitation, the excessive precipitation. Those are some of the things that we’ve so far scratched the surface when we looked at layers two the water.
00:05:32:25 – 00:06:02:12
Unknown
And important to know that the surface stayed 50 and eight, 50 to 700 mil more. For the place of the water product, Lola is important for the low levels for most of the water in the atmosphere exists. But what we’ve learned now with this layer of water is that the 700 to 500, mid-level, allows us to see a surprising, contribution, not sort of too much.
00:06:02:12 – 00:06:31:05
Unknown
And, we we should think about, m b that type of, moisture enhancement with the mid-level of the, the elevated, moisture level and, believe it or not, we’ve even seen, 500 to 300, click in with with a small contribution of moisture. But, the added the factors of deepening, a deep layer of moisture producing heavy explanation.
00:06:31:07 – 00:06:56:27
Unknown
I’m going to kind of quickly go through, a few examples from this, winter so far. This has been a, truly incredible, winter precipitation for the, the West Coast. If you are 30 years old or younger, you probably haven’t seen anything like this, the least as a working meteorologist.
00:06:57:00 – 00:07:26:29
Unknown
But, this is kind of like it was, ten or more years ago where you had storms coming in to the West coast and distributed precipitation, not just in one area like the northwest that a few years ago, but, kind of spread out, from Southern California through, Oregon and up to Washington state, over, and since October.
00:07:27:01 – 00:08:01:27
Unknown
In this particular case, it was kind of long fetch moisture and, as you can see, from the, very simple water product on the, on the left, the surface to 858, 50 to 700, 700 to 500 to 500 to 300. The, yeah. I’ve, put arrows where the, upper level, the winds at that, the average upper level winds that, that, that those levels occurred and in conjunction with where the highest moisture at that layer was.
00:08:01:29 – 00:08:46:15
Unknown
And it’s, no surprise that, the highest moisture was being affected, in each way or toward the northern California and, southwestern Oregon, western Oregon, and, with the, also the looking at the various shortwave and the frontal systems that went through the northwest. That’s pretty much where the heaviest rain for occurred. So this was a kind of a long stretch, multi layered, moisture advection, case where everything kind of came together to produce, excessive rainfall from the northwest, extreme northwest California through western Oregon.
00:08:46:17 – 00:09:28:09
Unknown
And it didn’t hurt that, the mountains provided the lift, especially in the higher levels, to reduce those, excessive amounts, the, the, the good thing about the layer of the water product is that it just provides an extra piece of information to go along with the, the, the, the blended TI bw product that we’re all, used to seeing since, the latter part of the last decade and, the, DPW percent of normal product, that kind of gives us an idea of how it relates to, how much above and below normal the moisture is coming in with these storms.
00:09:28:12 – 00:10:00:12
Unknown
I also include the, University of Wisconsin Sims mimic t bw product because, and also was a is a, DPW product. That’s up a while. And, it’s an addictive type of moisture product that uses satellite data. Very similar to the, the, mower product and is a, pretty much an upcoming product as well in the way above, looking at the, total atmospheric moisture.
00:10:00:15 – 00:10:24:26
Unknown
Next, storm, November 24th, 25th. How did I pick these storms? Well, it was kind of. I just looked at, the aerial extent and the heaviest precipitation, come up with a few examples of, of the heavy precipitation, events and then just kind of see how the, the, the, the layered the water reported.
00:10:24:27 – 00:11:00:07
Unknown
And this was another long fetch moisture, advection transport, case where but both at the, the low levels at the top images of the, layer from the water product and the, the bottom images also showed pretty much a, a moisture transport of very, high moisture into, extreme, into western Oregon and Washington and, and, as a result, it produced a focused area of excessive precipitation over northwest Oregon and western Washington.
00:11:00:09 – 00:11:42:02
Unknown
It’s, these, multilayered, high moisture transport, and all kind of aligning. So other, the things that we’re casters need to, forecasters are already aware of because this sets of precipitation, this is a, another way of confirming things and increasing your confidence in your forecast of heavy precipitation. What I did was, I mean, I, I took the, the times of the data, which were 24 hours before the end of the 24 hour precipitation period.
00:11:42:04 – 00:12:31:21
Unknown
And so there and I wanted to kind of put that forecasting angle wanted, by having this information and then knowing where the heaviest precipitation would be over the next 24 hours. And as you can see with the blended DPW, not a whole lot of moisture, not much moisture, more than 15 or 20mm. But the addition of the layered water product, the injected layers of the water product showing where the best moisture transport was, and a multi layer, aspect and, and that telling you that the deepness, not only the deepness of the moisture, but the deepness of the moisture transport into an area provide you with additional information to, to focus
00:12:31:21 – 00:12:41:15
Unknown
in on, not just a heavy precipitation event, but possibly an excessive precipitation event, which, this one.
00:12:41:18 – 00:13:05:24
Unknown
Then we go to December. And, kind of a completely different event from the first two that I showed. The first two, I showed the events in which the moisture was pretty much coming from west to east, across the Pacific, at least across the eastern Pacific. This is an event that, came from the tropics.
00:13:05:27 – 00:13:36:20
Unknown
And another, kind of, application we’ve seen was that, even at one layer where you have converging moisture plumes, you can and converging separate converging moisture plumes at a particular layer, that too, is an identification of the possibility of excessive precipitation, which happened that in the, in this surface, the 850, you go to the 850 to 700, moisture plumes are kind of separate.
00:13:36:22 – 00:14:28:01
Unknown
And so was the flow. But it kind of demarcates the, aerial expanse of the, where the heavy precipitation will occur because it’s it’s being transported in about the same spot as the surface, the 850, moisture transport convergence going into, Northern California and the northern and central Sierras. You go down to the 700 to 500, which I like the best because, it’s this enhanced color enhancement as I think the best for the with the 700 to 500 millibar level, is that you have three streams of moisture and three, sets of moisture transport, transport that are converging over central and central California coast.
00:14:28:04 – 00:14:58:07
Unknown
And, that also was pointing and confirming, the other layers that the that the capitation, over the next 24 hours is going to be, not just, moderate to heavy, but pretty excessive over the central California coast. And with these, these main the typical water to the southeast and kind of holding their ground that to allow for focus into central California.
00:14:58:09 – 00:15:34:15
Unknown
Let’s go to January 8th, ninth, 2017, where again, similar to the December case, we had, tropical moisture advection, literally from the tropics, at least one of the, more moisture bands, bands are, from the literally from the, the tropics up southeast of Hawaii. And then there’s a couple of other bands that are, bringing up southwesterly subtropical flow, in the low levels.
00:15:34:17 – 00:16:07:24
Unknown
And, when you get to the 850 to 700 for this particular case, there’s really only one, atmospheric river of moisture at this layer, and it tends to focus the precipitation, pretty much on just on it just north of San Francisco and into, the, the northern Sierras. So what, that’s your low level moisture. But that’s just that’s not good enough to know where there may be, excessive precipitation and real, real problems, in the next 24 hours.
00:16:07:24 – 00:16:43:19
Unknown
And then you look at the 77 to 500 millibar level, which you normally would think would not have a whole lot of, moisture. And because most of the moisture in the atmosphere is below 10,000ft or below the, some of the, of our level, but, but, being able to see a couple moisture plumes that are kind of converging over or near a San Francisco provide you with additional information as to this and and confirming even more the possibility of, not just heavy rainfall, but excessive rainfall for an event like this.
00:16:43:19 – 00:17:18:09
Unknown
And with two, p.w means, one to the northwest and one to the southeast, over southern. But, things are those moisture plumes at the center of the farmer, Bill Lovett, are kind of sandwiched in kind of and even more reason to expect the excessive precipitation for an event like this. And I, the, the, the 500 to 300, most of the time, you don’t add much more than 2 or 3mm of water up to that level, too.
00:17:18:15 – 00:17:47:18
Unknown
But if you do have that much moisture or maybe a little bit more than that and, and also moisture, very high moisture and the other layers that, will that that’s significant. It gives you a deeper moisture layer and again tells you information that not just heavy, but excessive, especially when you have that much moisture, hitting up against the mountains.
00:17:47:20 – 00:18:18:10
Unknown
And condoms, and when, when you look at the 700 to 500 and even if I wanted to clear the middle more level and, many times, you know, I’m a person that kind of, they look at satellite data and also kind of like to look back in time and kind of compare events. And, this particular event, January, was, I compared very, well to the historic California moisture plume of the March 10th, 1995.
00:18:18:12 – 00:18:42:16
Unknown
Same kind of orientation. But of course, back then we had you layer to the water products, and we really only had one answer for my, microwave imager up there. So, many times we can learn a lot from, comparing, events like this with other events. The past then, number of events later in January.
00:18:42:18 – 00:19:17:22
Unknown
Again, not quite a, an event where moisture came directly from the tropics, but, obviously a, almost, pineapple connection that the surface, the 50 when we look at the, layers of a water product and also the 850 to 700 millibar, kind of pointing the best moisture transport towards central California and, even a good moisture plume arrived at the 700 to 5 million millibar level into, central California.
00:19:17:24 – 00:19:53:06
Unknown
And, even at the 500 to 300 millibar level, a very skinny, narrow, very weak moisture, but a moisture point nonetheless. That, again, has a long stretch of moisture, maybe even as far back as, within a wide but, the back thing towards central California and all of that kind of allows for an accumulating of ideas, accumulating of information that would point you toward the excessive, temptation.
00:19:53:08 – 00:20:30:01
Unknown
And, kind of this recently with the February, with a February event earlier this month. Again, I know same not quite, totally from the depths of the tropics, but certainly, pineapple connection, not just the surface. 850 and 850 to 700 where, as we know, most of the moisture is contained in the atmosphere, but also at the 700 to 500, an important level, because if you have deep moisture at the 790, no more level with a long stretch and extending into the the subtropics.
00:20:30:03 – 00:21:02:10
Unknown
And you also have similar conditions at the surface. 850 and 857 100 that can mean the difference between the, just an ordinary heavy rain event and an excessive heavy rain event. And, well, we all know what, heavy rain events, cause problems in, California, in the West Coast, as it is. But, knowing that the same feature is the same atmospheric river of moisture as layers at 700, 500 and 503, even 503 hundred.
00:21:02:10 – 00:21:29:29
Unknown
In this particular case, as can have good, very deadly, aspects to it or, this is showing the the depth of the moisture at the transport of the depth of the moisture. And, when I mentioned transport of moisture, that’s just moisture that’s coming in to replace the moisture that’s being, put down on the ground, so to speak.
00:21:30:01 – 00:22:12:05
Unknown
So, you know, it helps that not just the lower levels have a deep voice, sir, but but, but but the mid-levels and even the higher levels have, have, that I’m for as well. Some internet websites for shallow water. I know that, obviously, you know, a nest is to DPW products or, and, he rips, it any rips up, the, National Weather Service forecasters, the, experimental layered convective severe water product, may be on, the in and a Whipps, for the national centers.
00:22:12:05 – 00:22:47:00
Unknown
I’m not sure what what what their availability is on, the local forecaster, a with two workstations and Sierra has a nice archive available that you can go back and and see, looks, from various forms over the last year. I have an example, down there as well, and also the University of Wisconsin Sims and experimental medic TBWA, which now includes, some of the water over the, land areas.
00:22:47:03 – 00:23:14:24
Unknown
Which is kind of, more of an objective type of, product that, it is a very worthwhile, looking at and, Journal article at the bottom, that, explains in detail the, experimental where the water product, that, is, hopefully will go operational, hopefully will be in, National Weather Service workstations.
00:23:14:27 – 00:23:50:14
Unknown
In the future. But is a extremely valuable pilot project. Thank you. Anybody have any questions? I can, Try to show some, The. This is Cleveland. I have a question for you with near some of the atmospheric rivers and some of the, different layers that you had right adjacent to the, stream, data that you had, shown near the coastline.
00:23:50:14 – 00:24:16:15
Unknown
Looks like there was some data dropouts in the, values of the precipitable water, and there were black areas there. Can you explain why there is no data in some of these locations? Well, that just may be that, data that was missed over a period of time, and just was not covered up with a new satellite.
00:24:16:17 – 00:24:55:19
Unknown
It, it if you’re talking about the layers of the water product, it’s still a experimental product. It’s still being worked on the forefront and will be continued to be worked on until it works its way into to operations. And, that’s just the nature of polar orbiting data, until it becomes an operational product and, the data is still dealing with, with, with all the satellites that, that are out there, you know, that it’s using at least 4 or 5 satellites.
00:24:55:19 – 00:25:19:21
Unknown
It could be using more if it was an operational cloud. Some, that’s why sometimes you have data gaps and, even that sometimes you have, the product on the web from Sierra. Since, they’re producing it in a research mode. It’s,
00:25:19:24 – 00:25:49:21
Unknown
It’s, you know, that, they’re not looking. They’re not keeping an eye on it 24 by seven like they do the blended BW products. So, and this is, puts out, so, you know, that that’s kind of the reason why you build up a shelter. This is, stance from, Sara. Let me let me just add that, the, the the glare was made from the surrounding products that they, the years sounding products.
00:25:49:21 – 00:26:20:00
Unknown
So, the retrieved soundings and then integrate them to give you the, water vapor in those different layers. Okay. So the difficulty reason there’s the data drop out is mostly it’s because, the, retrieval didn’t, didn’t converge at a particular point. Mostly that’s due to rain, but not entirely different, due to rain. It was a good thing to do with these products is to look at the, is to look at the rain.
00:26:20:03 – 00:26:47:18
Unknown
The companion rain product and see where the where it looks like it’s raining. And then you get a better idea about, you know, why they would, not get the precipitable water. And that would probably explain why all those drop outs are near where the rivers that he indicated. Because he’s indicating where the the moisture was, the moisture streams in these drop outs, where at and near that area as it was coming into the coastline.
00:26:47:21 – 00:27:08:11
Unknown
Yeah, it’s not all rain, but it’s, you know, it’s where the retrieval has a hard time working. And that’s usually because it’s, is it? It could be snow, any type of precip or heavy pre, any kind of thing that gets in the way of the, the microwaves can sense, you know, and prevent it from and prevent it from actually just seeing the water vapor itself.
00:27:08:14 – 00:27:38:10
Unknown
Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Right. And and also while you, you’ll know that the state of drop outs with where there’s mountains and things obviously surface data, black things out too. But sometimes, knowing where there’s precipitation in the middle of these moisture plumes, can be very helpful to, to to, to forecast as I kind of look at the black areas, where they could be precipitating assistance because it’s important information.
00:27:38:10 – 00:27:59:21
Unknown
And I just kind of get beyond that bit, because I know that the moisture plume extends through that. So, And that’s how I kind of look at it. And I believe, but hopefully you can see this, this is the current, product coming out of the Sierra, and it goes through 1500 c this morning.
00:27:59:23 – 00:28:27:26
Unknown
And it, like, pretty much off center things. I had to center things with West Coast obviously being, the event of the day, there. I was going to say, I believe Chris Jethro has a, question. You guys just addressed it. Just with respect to the how it typically fails in areas of precipitation, the year’s retrievals.
00:28:27:28 – 00:28:57:00
Unknown
Okay. Any other questions? So, because, I answered it with respect to the failure of the mirrors retrievals in the areas of precipitation. Okay. Does anybody else have any more questions for Sheldon? Again? This is Ed. It’s okay. I have a comment. For Sheldon, like Sheldon, that was a great presentation. The the product, the layered product is available to interested folks.
00:28:57:02 – 00:29:23:01
Unknown
To the LDM, if they would like us to, set them up with that, we have, I know you have about 10 to 20. I think I was getting it now. And John, foresight is also working on the product, for the later product as well. The other thing I wanted to mention was, and I know you know this, but, we talked about California, but these, rivers can get or leftovers from them get well inland.
00:29:23:01 – 00:30:02:16
Unknown
And that December case you showed produced extreme the band of snow over mountains. A little bit of rear freezing rain here in Boulder and and eventually, kind of a surprise snowstorm or right over DEA, that, on the on the day after the, the river showed hitting California. So they, they have a wide impact. Right. And my mike it’s actually they gave a visit discussion, back in November showing the, the ramifications of all these moisture that all these layers, a wrap around excess of almost two things snows in New York state.
00:30:02:19 – 00:30:30:20
Unknown
So, one more application than just the West Coast. And, the, drilling area notion is out there, with a little of. So. So this is Cleveland. Can we be added to that LDM, data stream? You just need a contact in Cleveland to, Yeah. Could you, could you send, it’s, you could send me or Dan an email and we’ll set you up.
00:30:30:22 – 00:31:00:02
Unknown
Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah. So. Any other questions? And and I, as I said, the there is a goes layer to the water point to that that’s been developed for this particular era and has even been a whole layer goes to layers and product. In the past generation satellites. So through this, layer to the water is not new.
00:31:00:04 – 00:31:21:29
Unknown
It is kind of new for, for looking globally, and, and with polar orbiting data. But, the applications have been starting to be moved to what I’ve and developed over the last few years. And a lot of them have been piggybacked off the, the total to the water applications that have been developed back in the 1990s.
00:31:21:29 – 00:31:47:24
Unknown
And we all know the the importance of moisture transport, but now we know the importance of converting moisture transport and, deepening the layer even more. And, with the last, instability in the, the energy producing not just, moderate precipitation, but excessive precipitation.
00:31:47:26 – 00:32:08:26
Unknown
Okay. And any other questions for, Sheldon? Dan, can you hear me? This is Chris. Yeah. Then, Chris. Mr. Sheldon, this reference for the opw data, it should be available for those. Where do we stand? That goes are on that right now. Hey.
00:32:08:29 – 00:32:34:21
Unknown
This is it. I did a module that that talked about that, and Sheldon’s chirping, but the issue is, of course, that, it it cannot see through clouds, so it substitutes the model essentially the GFS. Okay. So so the ideal product someday would be a blended product. What do you think, Sheldon? I, I absolutely agree with you.
00:32:34:24 – 00:33:08:04
Unknown
I’m I, I was pushing for the blended products back 15 years ago, and, I was even, trying to nudge, the researchers at Wisconsin and Colorado State to come together and bring their, their, their nest, UW products into one, one gram product. But, blended is the way to go. And, I think, you know, forecasters really want to see one product as opposed to many different products.
00:33:08:04 – 00:33:32:21
Unknown
So I think the more we, merge things together into a, an even better product for forecasters and, since they can have less time to look at things and observe that, you know, the better off we’re going to be. Know, the other thing we should mention about the go 16 product is, of course, will have higher, much higher time resolution than right now.
00:33:32:23 – 00:34:12:03
Unknown
I, I see, I see where the, the, the big thing with the goes product is the, the meadow micro scale aspects of it. Whereas the best things I see with, these four global products, Eric Kohn on the product side, and then, you know, the bigger scale of the we have across the Pacific and Sea out across the Atlantic and, and, and, and near the equator, so that we know where these, atmospheric rivers of moisture are coming from days in advance, as opposed to maybe, 1 or 2 days in advance.
00:34:12:05 – 00:34:33:13
Unknown
The go 16 baseline products are clear sky only. So that’s what you’ll be seeing in else when that baseline product starts flowing sometime in late April or May. Is it a layered component? You get a baseline product because I was under the impression that the layer product was not going to be a baseline product, you wouldn’t have it available to us in operations.
00:34:33:16 – 00:34:52:06
Unknown
That one I’m not sure of, I think I think it’s not layered. Yeah. Just got now that now that you mentioned that I think you are correct. Yes. That’s where I got into some trouble I believe when I did that. Yeah. Well I, I know they got funding for I know that Wisconsin got funding for a they layered a Sheldon.
00:34:52:06 – 00:35:32:08
Unknown
The layered product exists but it is not a baseline product I guess hopefully see it down the road. Oh well I know I know they’re producing something for a because it was a legacy product. But I, I guess it’s great. We’ve got the linguistics, which is I’m not in the no. But I know they were, you got funding for, for to produce a layered with, pretty much, the big because it was a legacy for generations.
00:35:32:11 – 00:35:58:21
Unknown
Okay. We were looking forward to seeing it sometime in. Yeah. Okay. Any final questions? Nice job. Sheldon. Great job. Thank you I am yeah, we work on the systems now that we have, come from this incredible world, winter up on the West coast. Okay, well, we want to thank, Sheldon for leading our visit. Satellite chat today.
00:35:58:21 – 00:36:04:00
Unknown
That was great. And, everybody, have a great day. Hey. Thank you. All right. So.