Weaver, Dostalek, Grasso, Bikos, Coleman

Responses to the final reviewer comments on “A Satellite Perspective of the 3 May 1999 Great Plains Tornado Outbreak” by Dan Bikos, John Weaver and Brian Motta were completed and the paper has been returned to the editor of Weather and Forecasting, along with publication quality copies of the figures.  The paper will appear some time in 2002 in a special issue dedicated to the May 3rd event.
 

Figure 1.  GOES-derived wind fields for 18:00 UTC on May 3, 1999.   Black barbs represent the 100 to 250 mb layer, cyan barbs the 251to 350 mb layer, and yellow barbs the 351-500 mb layer.  Wind speeds are in knots.  Figure illustrates the jet streak that played a critical role in setting up the devastating tornado outbreak in Central Oklahoma and south central Kansas on this day.  Click on image to enlarge.

A manuscript documenting part of the material being taught by VISIT is being drafted.  It will be titled, “Lightning Meteorology I:  Distance-Learning Training on the Use of Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Data in the Short Range Forecast and Nowcasting Processes,” and will be co-authored by Bard Zajac (CIRA) and John Weaver (NOAA).  The article is a review of general CG lightning meteorology with an accent on its usage in the forecast/nowcast environment, and is being written for the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

A poster entitled “Left moving thunderstorms in a high Plains, weakly-sheared environment” was created.  The focus was the thunderstorm outbreak that occurred in western Texas on May 25, 1999.  The poster was presented by J. Dostalek at CIRA’s annual Pingree Park Retreat and at the American Meteorological Society’s 18th Conference on Weather Analysis and Forecasting/14th Conference on Numerical Weather Prediction in Fort Lauderdale, FL.

Figure 2.  Printable version of a poster on severe left-moving thunderstorms by Weaver, Dostalek, Phillips and Grasso.  Click on image to enlarge.

Work continues on establishing an RSO data archive.  An EXCEL spreadsheet listing that includes satellite name, date and times of RSO, the location, agency and reason for the call, and what severe weather occurred during the collection is complete through October 2000.  There are over 700 dates listed so far.  Eleven  of the most significant cases have been selected from the list, and the first has been transferred to CD-ROM.  Case dates are being selected by Weaver and Bikos.

The final version of a web-based teaching module entitled “Urban Flooding: It can Happen in a Flash” has been produced by COMET.  The module was put together by Wendy Schreiber-Abshire and Matt Kelsh (COMET) and J. Weaver (NOAA/NESDIS).  The module is designed to take about an hour to complete.  It is based on the Fort Collins flood, and contains text, graphics photos and audio components.  The final version can be seen at:
http://meted.ucar.edu/qpf/urbanf/index1.htm