Early Assessment of the Geostationary Lightning Mapper

2018 has been a critical year for the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) aboard GOES-16. After changes recommended during the Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT) in 2017, the GLM flash extent density and other products have been ready for testing with forecasters. The initial effort began with the Hazardous Weather Testbed this past spring. This effort served as the initial foundation for the subsequent work that has taken place over the summer of 2018. The National Weather Service (NWS) Operations Proving Ground (OPG) is leading a multi-agency GLM implementation team to bring GLM data to the field offices. This began in late April with a preliminary test and evaluation of the functionality of the AWIPS GLM plug-in. By late June, this expanded to pre-operational assessment of the GLM products at nearly two dozen sites. OPG and the GLM Satellite Liaison have led the effort in gathering feedback from the participating NWS offices and outlining training tasks that will be needed to address this feedback.

This presentation will focus on the responses and follow-up discussions that have been provided by the first forecasters to use GLM data operationally. Three items will be discussed. First will be a discussion on the results of the pre-operational assessment. Also, operational cases of note, as presented by participating forecasters, will be highlighted to demonstrate the utility of the GLM data in operations. Lastly, the presentation will conclude with questions asked by participants, such as clear air discharges and low GLM flash counts, and the efforts by the GLM science and implementation teams to address these questions in new training.