Utilizing Optical Flow Tracking-Based Retrievals of Cloud Top Cooling as a Research and Forecasting Tool for Deep Convection

Severe convection can pose significant hazards to life and property, making accurate forecasts and timely warnings crucial for risk mitigation. Operational forecasters and stakeholders often rely on rigorous, subjective analysis of trends in visible and infrared satellite imagery that provide some of the earliest signals for nowcasting convection initiation (CI). The GOES-R Series Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), with its enhanced temporal, spatial, and radiometric resolutions, opens new research opportunities to objectively retrieve and explore such relevant trends, and how they can be used in operations. Here, we leverage new techniques to track cloud-drift motions of CI in ABI, also known as the "Optical Flow" (OF), to build an understanding of vertical cloud development trends and relationships to the ambient environment through rigorous analysis of retrieved near-pixel-wise cloud-top cooling (CTC). Case studies during the 2024 summer convective season reveal relationships between CTC and instability which can be predicted by integrating various levels of observed and modeled Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE). We also show examples where convection deviates from predicted relationships, likely due to factors not incorporated by conventional parcel theory when deriving CAPE (e.g. entrainment and pressure gradient forces), which can be used by forecasters to identify when observed convection may under- or over-perform traditional sounding-based predictions. The case studies also suggest that CTC often precedes high (>35 dBz at -10 °C) reflectivity by ≤ ~30 minutes, though lead times may significantly depend on how quick growth happens in nature. Furthermore, we will delve into the results from demonstrations of the CTC product and feedback from National Weather Service forecasters during the 2024 Hazardous Weather Testbed in Norman, Oklahoma, and how this research will enhance the product in the future.