Overview of the 2005 and Spring 2006 WDSS-II Demonstration at WFO St. Louis

During the late spring 2005 through spring 2006, forecasters at the National Weather Service Forecast Office (WFO) in St. Louis Missouri used the National Severe Storm Laboratory (NSSL) Warning Decision Support System – Integrated Information (WDSS-II) and associated products during warning decision making operations. WDSS-II allowed forecasters to interrogate data from operational and research sensors, interact with prototype radar applications and view products from multiple radars. A number of forecasters evaluated prototype multiple-radar and multiple-sensor severe weather warning decision-making applications and provided feedback on experimental WDSS-II 4D display tools. Products including reflectivity on the -20C level derived from multiple radars, vertical cross-sections of reflectivity, azimuthal shear and base (or storm-relative) velocity were found to be some of the more useful products during warning operations. Forecasters particularly were impressed with the ability to view base fields with horizontal and vertical plans as viewed in a 3-D perspective. Being able to slide through the storm gave forecasters a greater perspective of the overall storm structure. Both tornadic (non-tornadic) supercell and quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) events were sampled during severe weather operations. The primary goal of this demonstration focused upon investigating the effectiveness of these products with different types of convective systems. Preliminary results from the real-time test and challenging case examples will be presented.