The Effects of SAILS on the Derivation of Vertically Integrated Products within the Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor Framework

The operational implementation of the Supplemental Adaptive Intra-Volume Low-Level Scan (SAILS) in the last few years has enhanced the temporal resolution of the weather surveillance radar 1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) by allowing for multiple 0.5° scans to occur during a single radar volume. With this system, forecasters can receive a low-level scan every minute compared to every four minutes in the legacy scanning framework. While these changes have the potential to enhance forecaster confidence during base data interrogation, the effects of this system on derived product sets, such as the Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor (MRMS) system, are currently unknown. MRMS blends all available radar information in the United States and Canada to provide a 33-level vertical cube of reflectivity- and velocity-derived product sets of at least 1km spatial resolution every two minutes.

With many MRMS algorithms performing a vertical integration during product generation, this study explores what impact these supplemental low-level scans have on the representation of the vertical storm profile. Through a comparative analysis of several supercell and quasi-linear convective system cases over the last year with the SAILS cuts retained and manually removed from each case, the positive and negative effects of using SAILS cuts on commonly used MRMS severe weather products will be shown.