87th AMS Annual Meeting

Monday, 15 January 2007
Comparison of tornadic and non-tornadic supercells using the National Weather Service's Graphical Forecast Editor
Exhibit Hall C (Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center)
J. Brad McGavock, NOAA/NWSFO, Tulsa, OK; and R. B. Darby, S. F. Piltz, and J. M. Frederick
Poster PDF (511.7 kB)
Eastern Oklahoma and Northwest Arkansas experienced a tornadic event on 12 March 2006 and a similar, but non-tornadic event on 6 April 2006. These two events will be compared utilizing interactive mesoscale objective analysis techniques developed within the National Weather Service's Graphical Forecaster Editor (GFE) software. Specifically, locally developed computer scripts within GFE, which allow for high resolution calculations of severe weather parameters, will be used for the comparison. These scripts, referred to as SmartTools, will create and display unique hodographs and storm-relative wind information in real- time for any storm of interest using that specific storm's motion. The functionality of this SmartTool will be featured in the analysis of the subtle, yet significant, differences in the mesoscale environments of the two events.

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