NSSL and collaborators will leverage new technology including dual-polarized radar observations and a precipitation reporting app to improve forecasts of winter weather during February and March.

The experiment will evaluate the performance of new algorithms that use dual-polarized radar data and determine what new tools could be developed to improve detection of precipitation type and amount in winter storms.

The group will assess a new technique that is a “first-guess” of precipitation type using dual-pol data and compare it to observations collected from the Precipitation Identification Near the Ground mobile app and the Severe Hazards Analysis and Verification Experiment phone calls. They plan to identify potential biases and regions of poor performance.

They will also look at quantitative precipitation estimation products that include dual-polarized information and compare them to current products to see if dual-polarized data improves the result.

The experiment is a collaboration between NSSL, the Storm Prediction Center, the Norman Weather Forecast Office and the National Weather Service Warning Decision Training Branch and the Radar Operations Center.

The NOAA NSSL will host the Technical Workshop on Numerical Guidance Support Warn-on-Forecast on Tuesday February 5.

The fourth annual Warn on Forecast and High Impact Weather Workshop will follow on February 6-7.

Warn-on-Forecast collaborators include NSSL and Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA National Weather Service and Storm Prediction Center, The University of Oklahoma’s Center for the Analysis and Prediction of Storms, and Social Science Woven Into Meteorology.

These workshops give researchers an opportunity to present progress reports and to discuss plans for further research toward improvements in lead time for severe weather warnings.

NSSL hosted a booth at the OU GIS Day event at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. on Wednesday, November 14. GIS Day is celebrated internationally to promote awareness of geospatial science and technology. The OU GIS Day event was the first of its kind at the university, and was an opportunity for nearly two dozen organizations to showcase their work in geographical information systems, global positioning systems, and remote sensing. Participation was open to K-12/undergraduate/graduate students, academia and researchers, private industry, non-governmental organizations, local/state/federal agencies, and the public.

NSSL’s booth featured displays of cloud climatology research using high-resolution MODIS satellite data. Researchers also showed images of NSSL’s On Demand system that plots, using Google Earth, swaths of hail and tracks of circulations detected by radar. Also displayed were a poster providing information about spatial datasets developed by and housed at NSSL to support NWS flash-flood operations, and a poster showing the results of a study relating the locations of reported flash-flood impacts to selected exposure factors. In addition, the recently-published book, Automating the Analysis of Spatial Grids by NSSL’s Dr. Lakshmanan, was available for viewing at the booth.

Researchers with the Coastal and Inland Flooding Observation and Warning (CI-FLOW) project are preparing for Hurricane Sandy to test their total water level system in North Carolina this weekend. The CI-FLOW system captures the complex interaction between rainfall, river flows, waves, tides and storm surge, and how they impact water levels in the Tar-Pamlico and Neuse Rivers and the Pamlico Sound in North Carolina.

CI-FLOW collects data from a computing system that combines radar and rain gauge information to create estimates of rainfall. This information is passed on to water quantity models that simulate freshwater flows from the headwaters of the basins into the rivers; taking into account soil type, slope of the land and vegetation patterns. Finally, water flow data is passed from river models to a coastal circulation and storm surge model that provides simulations of waves, tides and storm surge.

National Weather Service forecasters will have access to CI-FLOW during Hurricane Sandy to help them evaluate the system for application in the flood and flash flood warning process.

The CI-FLOW project is motivated by NOAA’s critical forecast need for detailed water level predictions in coastal areas and has a vision to transition CI-FLOW research findings and technologies to other U.S. coastal watersheds.

The NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory with support from the NOAA National Sea Grant Office leads the unique interdisciplinary team including the North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas Sea Grant Programs, University of Oklahoma, Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Seahorse Consulting, NWS Forecast Offices in Raleigh, and Newport/Morehead City, NWS Southeast River Forecast Center, NOAA’s Coastal Services Center, NOAA in the Carolinas, NOAA Southeast and Caribbean Regional Team (SECART), NOAA-Integrated Ocean Observing System, Department of Homeland Security, Center of Excellence-Natural Disasters, Coastal Infrastructure and Emergency Management, Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence SouthEast, Coast Survey Development Laboratory and NWS Office of Hydrologic Development.

Springer has just published a book written by NSSL/CIMMS scientist Valliappa Lakshmanan: “Automating the Analysis of Spatial Grids - A Practical Guide to Data Mining Geospatial Images for Human and Environmental Applications.”

Lakshmanan used the techniques described in the book as the basis for several valuable NSSL applications including the Warning Decision Support System: Integrated Information and NSSL: On Demand.

The book is based on a course Lakshmanan taught in Spring 2011 at the University of Oklahoma.

Here is an excerpt from the preface:

“The ability to create automated algorithms to process gridded spatial data is increasingly important as remotely sensed data sets increase in volume and frequency. Whether in business, social science, ecology, meteorology or urban planning, it has become critical to analyze and detect patterns in geospatial data and to do so with minimal human intervention. My aim with this book is to provide readers with a foundation in topics of digital image processing and data mining as applied to geospatial data sets. The aim is for readers to be able to devise and implement automated techniques to extract information from spatial grids such as radar, satellite, or high-resolution survey imagery.”

http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-94-007-4074-7/#section=1083839&page=4&locus=63

The free, public and very popular National Weather Festival will be held Saturday, November 3 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the National Weather Center. More than 4,500 people attended the event in 2011.

The unique event features hourly weather balloon launches, children’s activities, storm research vehicle displays, amateur radio demonstrations and weather related information and products.

Visitors will be allowed to tour some areas of the National Weather Center's premier facilities, including National Weather Service Forecast operations areas. Oklahoma-based emergency response organizations will display vehicles and equipment used to respond to disasters such as tornadoes and wildfires.

About 50 storm chasing vehicles have been entered in the Storm Chaser Car Show to be eligible for prizes in four divisions: Storm Spotter, Student/Researcher, Professional, and TV Chaser.

NOAA Weather Partners and the University of Oklahoma host the National Weather Festival. Sponsors of the event include the Norman Chamber of Commerce with support from dozens of local weather and business organizations.

National Weather Festival Website

A NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) scientist is leading an experiment to collect a comprehensive dataset on vertical turbulence and thermodynamic profiles in a portion of the lower atmosphere known as the boundary layer. A number of instruments deployed in north central Oklahoma will collect data for six weeks during the Lower Atmospheric Boundary Layer Experiment (LABLE).

The unique dataset will help researchers understand turbulent processes and thus improve our ability to reproduce turbulence more accurately in numerical weather models that attempt to simulate the atmosphere.

Turbulence redistributes energy and mass in the atmosphere, and can be influenced by different surface types, horizontal wind speed and direction, and the vertical temperature structure of the atmosphere. However, there have been relatively few studies that have investigated how the vertical turbulence profile changes over short horizontal distances due to these variables. Data collected during LABLE will also be used to derive water vapor fluxes at the top of the boundary layer, and to compare vertical motions observed by different instruments.

LABLE leverages the strong observing infrastructure currently available from the Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains (SGP) site in north-central Oklahoma. In addition to the instruments already in place at SGP, NSSL and scientists from the University of Oklahoma deployed two Doppler lidars, a sodar, and a laser scintillometer to measure turbulence, winds, thermodynamic structure and other microphysical properties.

An NSSL microphysics scheme that will help forecast six different types of precipitation more accurately was included in the most recent update of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The model is used by operational meteorologists and refined by atmospheric researchers to help forecast thunderstorms and other smaller scale weather with greater realism.

The NSSL scheme predicts the development of water and ice particles in clouds. Like other schemes, it categorizes particles into broad classes of liquid (small cloud droplets or larger rain drops) and ice (small crystals, snow particles, graupel, and hail). Both the amount of mass and the number of particles are tracked, so that the average particle size is predicted. The new NSSL scheme adds a prediction of graupel particle density.

Graupel is a type of ice particle that has a lot of small water drops frozen onto it (rime ice), and can vary in widely in density. Graupel that starts as a freezing rain drop will have higher density than graupel that starts as a rimed ice crystal. Typical schemes have a constant density for graupel and a constant fall speed relationship. Predicting the density, however, allows a much greater range of fall speeds and can result in a more realistic distribution of graupel in a storm. This then affects where the rain (melted graupel) falls to ground, and the melting and evaporation cool the air. The cold air outflow is important for storm motion, longevity, and even severity.

NSSL’s Ted Mansell was instrumental in getting the scheme into NCAR WRF and plans to test it in the NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed during the 2013 Spring Experiment.

Addition to weather model helps forecast precip types more accurately

An NSSL microphysics scheme that will help forecast six different types of precipitation more accurately was included in the most recent update of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The model is used by operational meteorologists and refined by atmospheric researchers to help forecast thunderstorms and other smaller scale weather with greater realism.

The NSSL scheme predicts the development of water and ice particles in clouds. Like other schemes, it categorizes particles into broad classes of liquid (small cloud droplets or larger rain drops) and ice (small crystals, snow particles, graupel, and hail). Both the amount of mass and the number of particles are tracked, so that the average particle size is predicted. The new NSSL scheme adds a prediction of graupel particle density.

Graupel is a type of ice particle that has a lot of small water drops frozen onto it (rime ice), and can vary in widely in density. Graupel that starts as a freezing rain drop will have higher density than graupel that starts as a rimed ice crystal. Typical schemes have a constant density for graupel and a constant fall speed relationship. Predicting the density, however, allows a much greater range of fall speeds and can result in a more realistic distribution of graupel in a storm. This then affects where the rain (melted graupel) falls to ground, and the melting and evaporation cool the air. The cold air outflow is important for storm motion, longevity, and even severity.

NSSL’s Ted Mansell was instrumental in getting the scheme into NCAR WRF and plans to test it in the NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed during the 2013 Spring Experiment.

Addition to weather model helps forecast precip types more accurately

An NSSL microphysics scheme that will help forecast six different types of precipitation more accurately was included in the most recent update of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The model is used by operational meteorologists and refined by atmospheric researchers to help forecast thunderstorms and other smaller scale weather with greater realism.

The NSSL scheme predicts the development of water and ice particles in clouds. Like other schemes, it categorizes particles into broad classes of liquid (small cloud droplets or larger rain drops) and ice (small crystals, snow particles, graupel, and hail). Both the amount of mass and the number of particles are tracked, so that the average particle size is predicted. The new NSSL scheme adds a prediction of graupel particle density.

Graupel is a type of ice particle that has a lot of small water drops frozen onto it (rime ice), and can vary in widely in density. Graupel that starts as a freezing rain drop will have higher density than graupel that starts as a rimed ice crystal. Typical schemes have a constant density for graupel and a constant fall speed relationship. Predicting the density, however, allows a much greater range of fall speeds and can result in a more realistic distribution of graupel in a storm. This then affects where the rain (melted graupel) falls to ground, and the melting and evaporation cool the air. The cold air outflow is important for storm motion, longevity, and even severity.

NSSL’s Ted Mansell was instrumental in getting the scheme into NCAR WRF and plans to test it in the NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed during the 2013 Spring Experiment.

NOAA, NASA and the University of Connecticut are representing the United States in the Hydrological Cycle in the Mediterranean Experiment (HyMeX), the largest weather field research project in European history.

HyMex is a 10-year international effort to better understand, quantify and model the hydrologic cycle in support of improved forecasts and warnings of flash floods in the Mediterranean region.

The project targets central Italy, southern France, the Balearic Islands, Corsica and northern Italy — all areas particularly susceptible to devastating flash flood events. Improved understanding of the land, atmosphere and ocean interactions that contribute to flash flooding in this part of the world will advance the state of the science that will ultimately be represented in forecast models with application in the United States.

NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) researchers will operate a mobile radar, NOAA – XPol (NOXP), in southeast France from Sept. 10 to Nov. 10. This is the first of several special observation periods during the HyMeX 10-year timeframe. Additionally, NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service is sponsoring scientists from New Mexico Tech to operate and evaluate a Lightning Mapping Array during HyMeX to support product development and validation for the future Geostationary Lightning Mapper on NOAA’s GOES-R satellite, which is scheduled to launch in late 2015.

The radar will provide high-resolution data and low altitude scans to help determine the size of the raindrops, the intensity of rainfall, and rainfall rates to help predict flash flooding conditions in the Cévennes Vivarais region of France.

During autumn, onshore moisture from the Mediterranean Sea encounters the 5,000-feet high Cévennes Mountains in southeast France making numerous towns and villages particularly subject to severe flash flood events.

Over the next three months, NSSL researcher will operate the NOAA-XPol mobile radar in southeast France as part of the HyMeX experiment, the largest weather field research project in European history.

“Data collected in the air, at sea and on land will shed light on how catastrophic flash-flooding events begin, which may help local officials better prepare for and respond to these types of emergencies,” said Jonathan Gourley, Ph.D., an NSSL research hydrologist.

Other sensors include three instrumented research aircraft, three research ships, buoys, ocean sensors, additional mobile precipitation radars, cloud radars and microradars, hundreds of rain gauges, ten disdrometers (to measure size and speed of individual raindrops), a dozen lidars, sonar, instrumented balloons, wind profilers, and a lightning mapping array.

NSSL’s participation in HyMeX is sponsored by MétéoFrance, and operations are coordinated with the Cévennes-Vivarais Mediterranean Hydro-Meteorological Observatory, The University of Grenoble, NASA, University of Connecticut and Cemagraf.

As storms moved across Oklahoma yesterday, the GOES-14 satellite, Multi-function Phased Array Radar (MPAR) and the Oklahoma Lightning Mapping Array (OK-LMA) coordinated data collection for the first time as part of the Super Rapid Scan Experiment.

The goal of the project is to evaluate the potential of these combined observations for forecasting and warning of severe storms.

The GOES-14 satellite has been taken out of storage (currently in orbit over the equator at 105 degrees west) to collect 1-minute satellite imagery over target areas when storms are expected. When thunderstorms move through Oklahoma, MPAR will also scan these storms at a rate of 1-minute or less. The LMA’s will map the location and development of lightning channel segments over the same areas.

The first of the next generation of geostationary satellites (GOES-R), scheduled to be launched in late 2015, will be able to routinely scan at 1-minute frequency with increased spectral and spatial resolution. It will also carry an optical lightning detection system (Geostationary Lightning Mapper) to measure total lightning (in-cloud and cloud-to ground) with high temporal and spatial resolution. The LMA measurements during these tests will be used to help assess the impact of the satellite-based lightning data when it becomes available with GOES-R.

The experiment runs from August 16, 2012 through about October 31, 2012 and is a coordinated effort between NSSL and the NESDIS Office of Satellite and Product Operations, and the NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) Advanced Satellite Products Branch in Madison, WI, and the GOES-R program office.

Real-time satellite imagery is being made available on the Web and on workstations (N-AWIPS) at the SPC:

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/srsor/GOES-14_SRSOR.html

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~rabin/goes14/loop_srso.html

A group of researchers, including NSSL’s Dave Stensrud, recently announced they plan to study the effects of cities on thunderstorms. Looking at a number of different U.S. cities, the project hopes to clarify how urban pollution, canopy, and surrounding landscape influences the intensity and track of an approaching thunderstorm.

Stensrud is a principal investigator on the three-year $1.5 million NASA grant.

Researchers will use data from the space-borne MODIS sensors on NASA satellites to look at city shape and size, as well as pollution and other aerosols, for selected cities in the Great Plains. These measurements, along with geographic data of the urban canopy and the vegetation of surrounding rural areas, will be combined with archived radar data of storms in high-resolution computer simulations.

“We are going to set up and run the model many times but with different variables; city or no city, pollution or vegetation,” Stensrud said. “From this we hope to learn what size a city needs to be to have an impact on a storm.”

The information will be valuable for city and regional planners, as well as agricultural producers in surrounding areas.

The team includes weather computer modelers, radar meteorologists, landscape architects, atmospheric chemists and geographers from NSSL, South Dakota State University, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Michigan, Columbia University and the University of Minnesota.

NSSL and NSSL/Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS) researchers donated their time this summer to mentor undergraduate students through research projects.

The students were selected through the prestigious NOAA Hollings Scholars program and the National Weather Center Research Experiences for Undergraduates (NWC REU). Both programs are designed to encourage students to pursue a future career in atmospheric science research through mentoring, tours, lectures and field trips.

NOAA Hollings Scholars and NWC REU programs support NOAA Education goals to develop a future workforce skilled in disciplines critical to NOAA’s mission.

The students are presenting the results of their research projects this week.

Hannah Huelsing (University of Northern Colorado) - REU - “Evaluation of Precipitation Diurnal Variability by TRMM: Case of Pakistan's 2010 Intense Monsoon”
Mentors: Dr. Yang Hong, Dr. Sadiq Kahn, Dr. Jonathan Gourley (NSSL) and Nicole Grams

Veronica Fall (Valparaiso University) - REU - “Intercomparison of Vertical Structure of Storms Revealed by Ground-based (NMQ) and Spaceborne Radars (CloudSat-CPR and TRMM-PR)”
Mentors: Dr. Yang Hong, Dr. Qing Cao, Dr. Jonathan Gourley( NSSL) and Nicole Grams

Jonathan Labriola (University of Miami) - REU - “Investigating the Relationship of Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor Parameters to Tornado Intensity”
Mentors: Kiel Ortega (CIMMS), Darrel Kingfield (CIMMS) and Madison Miller (NSSL)

Hope Weldon (Jackson State University) - REU - “Toward a Better Understanding of Tornado Fatalities”
Mentors: Greg Carbin and Dr. Harold Brooks (NSSL)

Phillip Ware (Jackson State University) - REU - “Evaluation of a Lightning Jump Algorithm with High Resolution Storm Reports”
Mentors: Dr. Kristin Calhoun (CIMMS), Kiel Ortega (CIMMS) and Greg Stumpf (NWS MDL)

Nathan Korfe (St. Cloud State University) - REU - “Sensitivity of Planetary Boundary Layer Parameterization Schemes on Forecasting Blizzard Conditions for the 11–12 December 2010 Snowstorm”
Mentors: Dr. Heather Reeves (CIMMS) and Dr. Adam Clark (CIMMS)


Lindsay Blank (Millersville University) - Hollings - "On the Predictability of Thunderstorms over the Southwestern United States"
Mentor: Dr. David Stensrud (NSSL)

Rebecca Steeves (North Carolina State University) - REU - “A Comparison of Mesoscale Analysis Systems Used for Severe Weather Forecasting”
Mentors: Dr. Dustan Wheatley (CIMMS) and Dr. Michael Coniglio (NSSL)

Matthew Vaughan (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University) - Hollings - “The Analyses and Prediction of a Supercell Storm from Assimilating Radar and Satellite Observations using EnKF”
Mentors: Dr. Nusrat Yussouf (CIMMS) and Dr. Thomas Jones (CIMMS)

Burkely Twiest (Penn State University) - Hollings - “Localizing Tornado Climatology in the Contiguous United States: An Environmental Parameter and Convective Mode Focus.”
Mentors: Bryan Smith, Rich Thompson, Andy Dean, Dr. Chris Melick, Dr. Harold Brooks (NSSL), and Patrick Marsh (CIMMS)

NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) has a ten-year cooperative research venture with the Salt River Project (SRP), an Arizona power and water utility, to develop weather decision support tools for the company’s power dispatch, transmission operations, and water diversion. In 2011, an NSSL-produced prototype algorithm that provided advance notice to prepare for the impact of a severe dust storm in Phoenix. Next week, NSSL launches a month-long study using mobile radar to verify its microburst and haboob prediction algorithms. These data help SRP serve 920,000 electric customers in the Phoenix area and deliver nearly 1 million acre-feet of water annually to a service area in central Arizona.

Evolution of a Quasi-Linear Convective System Sampled by Phased Array Radar

Journal: Monthly Weather Review

Expected publication date: Early online release, June 5, 2012

Authors: Jennifer Newman, Pamela Heinselman (NSSL)

Summary: The National Weather Radar Testbed Phased Array Radar in Norman,
Oklahoma scanned a strong line of thunderstorms as it produced damaging wind
events across central Oklahoma. The rapid scanning phased array radar
created a detailed depiction of these wind events including microbursts, an
intensifying midlevel jet, and a small area of rotation.

Important conclusions: The depiction of these events in the phased array
radar data demonstrates the complex and rapidly changing nature of strong
lines of thunderstorms.

Significance: Using rapid-scan phased array radar, developing severe weather
is easier to detect and important changes in the strength of storms can be
revealed.

NSSL’s mobile mesonet was on display for the third year at the Apache Tribe Environmental Camp, held annually near Apache or Fort Cobb Okla., about one hour southwest of Oklahoma City.

Randy Peppler, CIMMS Associate Director and Assistant Director of NOAA Relations showcased the minivian with weather instruments mounted on top to expose Native American children to science and science education. He also engaged them in conversations about clouds and weather research.

“Native farmers provided me with their knowledge on weather and climate for my dissertation. This is my way to give back,” said Peppler.

The environmental outreach camp is the only event of its kind in Oklahoma to show young Native Americans the importance of our environment and natural resources, along with letting them know what programs and careers are available to them. The camp also offered cultural teachings such as bow and arrow making, making fry bread, setting up a tee-pee, and drum history talks.

CIMMS/NSSL, the USDA's Farm Service Agency and Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Apache Tribe Environmental Program, Langston University, Kiowa Native Farms LLC, and farmers and ranchers were all participants.

The goal during the 2012 hurricane season is to produce realistic simulations of total water level in real time for coastal storms. National Weather Service forecasters will have access to CI-FLOW during these events to help them evaluate the system for application in the flood and flash-flood warning process.

CI-FLOW is a demonstration project that captures the complex interaction between rainfall, river flows, waves, tides and storm surge, and how these factors affect water levels in the Tar-Pamlico and Neuse rivers and the Pamlico Sound in North Carolina.

CI-FLOW was tested in August 2011 as Hurricane Irene made landfall near Morehead City, NC. CI-FLOW total water-level simulations were compared with water levels observed during the storm. Researchers found a high level of agreement in both the timing and water-level heights for the Tar-Pamlico and Neuse coastal watershed.

The CI-FLOW project is motivated by NOAA’s critical forecast need for detailed water-level predictions in coastal areas and has a vision to transition CI-FLOW research findings and technologies to other U.S. coastal watersheds.

This real-time demonstration will offer valuable insight on the accuracy and utility of total water level predictions for communities in the coastal plain of the Tar-Pamlico and Neuse rivers and the Pamlico Sound. Real-time simulations of coastal water levels for the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season are available on the CI-FLOW website (https://secure.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/ciflow/). The site also includes an introductory video that highlights the flooding from Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and the response from Sea Grant and NOAA partners. (http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/ciflow/)

CI-FLOW’s unique interdisciplinary team is lead by NOAA NSSL and includes the NOAA NWS, NOAA Sea Grant, NOAA Cooperative Institutes, and other local, state, regional, academic and federal partners.

NSSL’s Field Observing Facilities Support (FOFS) team just finished installing seven new lightning mapping stations in the Oklahoma Lightning Mapping Array (OKLMA). The new sites in southwest Oklahoma, in addition to 11 existing stations in central Oklahoma, are all now operational, just in time for the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) project that began in May.

The OK-LMA provides three-dimensional mapping of lightning channel segments over west central Oklahoma and two-dimensional mapping of all lightning over most of Oklahoma. Up to thousands of points can be mapped for an individual lightning flash, to reveal its location and the development of its structure.

NSSL scientists hope to learn more about how storms produce intra-cloud and cloud-to-ground flashes and how each type is related to tornadoes and other severe weather.

The OKLMA data will complement DC3 atmospheric chemistry measurements to help estimate how much NOx, an ozone-precursor, is produced by lightning. Real-time lightning observations also will be used by scientists to help keep research aircraft away from lightning hazards to on-board equipment and flight instruments.

More than 100 researchers from NOAA and 29 other organizations are collaborating on a field project this spring to discover how thunderstorms act like elevators, taking pollution and water-rich air from the surface and lofting it straight up into the upper troposphere.

The Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) experiment will explore the role of the displaced air in forming upper-atmosphere ozone, a greenhouse gas. Measurements made using three research aircraft, mobile radars, lightning mapping arrays, and other tools will help scientists understand more about the electrical and chemical structure of thunderstorms, including the concentration of ozone.

Ozone is created when sunlight triggers interactions between pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and other gases. These interactions are well understood at the Earth’s surface, but they have not been measured at the top of the troposphere, where the effects of ozone are the strongest.

Pollution isn’t the only source of nitrogen oxides, however.

"We are pretty sure lightning is the largest natural source of nitric oxide," said NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory scientist Don MacGorman. "It is important to know the naturally occurring contribution."

While past field projects have focused on the thunderstorm details with only some chemistry information or on the chemistry with limited data on the storms, DC3 is the first to take a comprehensive look at the chemistry and thunderstorm details, including the air movement, cloud physics, and electrical activity. Investigators expect the data to create the best picture yet of chemical transport, production and processing by thunderstorms.

The DC3 project runs from May 15 - June 30, and is funded by the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

DC3 investigators will collect data in northern Alabama, northeastern Colorado, and central Oklahoma. All three sites have existing weather instrumentation on the ground, including dual-Doppler research radars and lightning mapping arrays enabling the scientists to study different types of atmospheric environments and storm types.
Teams from the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory and The University of Oklahoma will launch balloon-borne instruments to make measurements of the storms and of the storm environment. These measurements will be combined with observations from aircraft and with information about the location, size, and frequency of lightning from lightning mapping arrays. Such measurements, MacGorman said, will improve understanding of how storms produce lightning and help with the use of lightning mapping data to improve storm forecasts and warnings.

NSSL and OU will also operate mobile Doppler radars to help researchers observe the internal airflow patterns of storms, which are important for determining how much air is transported up through the storm. Radars with dual polarization technology will provide additional information on particle shapes, for example where large raindrops occur.

NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory’s (ESRL) Owen Cooper and Jerome Brioude will use weather forecasting models to understand where the air lofted into the troposphere by a thunderstorm travels. A day later, one of the research airplanes will target that region, so the scientists can look at how the air mass composition changed: how much ozone formed, for example, and whether chemical reactions created particulate matter , too.

“Usually, things just simmer along slowly in the upper troposphere,” said ESRL’s Tom Ryerson. “These storms have the potential to crank up reaction rates to more of a boil.”

Three research aircraft will be based at Salina (Kan.) Municipal Airport, a location more central to the study areas. Each day, they will fly to the area with the most promising forecast for thunderstorms suitable for study.

The NSF/NCAR Gulfstream V research aircraft will do the bulk of the high-altitude measurements. Simultaneously, a NASA DC-8 will fly as low as 1,000 feet above the ground, measuring air flowing into the clouds at their base as well as the chemistry of surrounding air. The third research aircraft, a Dassault Falcon 20E operated by DLR, the German space agency, will join DC3 for three weeks and fly especially close to storm cores at high altitudes.

The scientists leading the project are from the National Centers for Atmospheric Research, the Pennsylvania State University, Colorado State University and NOAA.


MORE INFORMATION:
DC3: https://www2.acd.ucar.edu/dc3
NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory: http://www.nssl.noaa.gov
NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratory: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov

The NOAA National Weather Radar Testbed Multi-function Phased Array Radar will support three experiments with data collection during the spring of 2012 as part of the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) Phased Array Radar Innovative Sensing Experiment (PARISE).

The Severe Weather Outbreak Study is a NOAA NSSL program to determine the importance of rapid and adaptive scanning from MPAR in the depiction and understanding of weather events with potential for significant societal impacts. The research field phase is from April 14 – June 15 2012 over the MPAR domain (defined as significant weather sampled within 120 km of MPAR). The main focus of this study to sample rare significant events such as tornado outbreaks.

NSSL will partner with MIT/Lincoln Labs and the FAA on the Multi-function Phased Array Radar’s (MPAR) Wind-Shear Detection Capability Assessment Experiment from April 16 – June 15, 2012. Low-altitude wind shear is a deadly threat to aircraft during landing and takeoff and its accurate and timely detection near airports is critical. Microbursts, in particular, are fairly small and evolve rapidly. There are 45 Terminal Doppler Weather Radars (TDWR) currently serving U.S. airports. MPAR’s have the potential to replace TDWRs at the end of their life cycle, provided they can effectively detect wind shear. Researchers will compare radar data from the Oklahoma City TDWR with data from the NOAA MPAR.

The Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) experiment will explore the role of the thunderstorm updrafts in carrying electrically charged particles, water vapor and other chemicals to the upper parts of our atmosphere. Scientists from more than two dozen organizations will use research aircraft, mobile radars, lightning mapping arrays and other tools to make measurements that will help scientists understand more about the electrical and chemical structure of thunderstorms, including the concentration of ozone. DC3 will focus on Alabama, Colorado and Oklahoma, but when thunderstorms are within 120 km of the Multi-function Phased Array Radar in central Oklahoma, teams will coordinate data collection. The project runs from May 15 – June 30, 2012 with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and NASA.

A team from NSSL will be NOAA Scientists in Residence at the world-renowned San Francisco Exploratorium science museum from March 8-25, 2012. During the event, “Rain in the Air: The Science of Storms,” the team will offer Exploratorium staff and visitors a behind the scenes look at the tools, techniques and people behind the effort to better understand severe storms.

NSSL retired researcher Dave Rust will share his thunderstorm electricity expertise and his skill at creating weather measuring instruments. Dave pioneered the use of free-flying balloons and mobile laboratories to make observations, significantly advancing thunderstorm science.

Susan Cobb is a meteorologist and science writer for NSSL, and her experience includes international forecasting, and writing about weather science for all audiences. Susan will work with visitors to understand, experience and forecast weather in the San Francisco area and around the world.

Sean Waugh is a graduate student at the University of Oklahoma and an instrumentation specialist working with the NSSL. He helped design and build seven Mobile Mesonets, storm research cars outfitted with weather instruments, computers, and communications equipment. Sean will give personal tours of the Mobile Mesonet and focus on ways NSSL collects data to learn more about storms.

Cobb and Waugh will give presentations on current NSSL research at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 18, 2012 in the McBean Theater.

The partnership is the result of a five-year educational grant with NOAA to co-develop interactive exhibits, learning experiences and professional development workshops for the learning institution.

The NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory’s mission to improve our knowledge of severe
weather and to develop new tools to better forecast and warn of its hazards has endured since its establishment in 1964.

The Exploratorium first opened in 1969 and welcomes more than 500,000 visitors each year.