Remote Sensing of Hail Scar–Producing Thunderstorms

The purpose of this paper is to identify physical essential characteristics of hail scar producing thunderstorms using a multitude of satellite, radar, and numerical weather prediction. Previous studies have shown that overshooting tops (OT), NASA TRMM and GPM microwave data and lightning information from the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) can be used to characterize the mid and upper level kinematics and microphysics of thunderstorms to determine when a storm has the potential to produce large damaging hail. Herein we examine the frequency, duration, and the environment in which these damaging storms form within the GOES 16/17 fields of view. Furthermore, we validate the radar, satellite, and lightning measurements through the identification of the damage using the Landsat Series and Sentinel 2 high resolution optical imagery. Our goal is to use the remote sensing information to separate thunderstorms which produce hail scars vs those that do not to determine the feasibility of rapid identification of affected areas for impact response and characterization.