Testing New Environmental Proxies for Supercell Tornadogenesis Using HRRR Analyses

The environmental proxies currently used operationally for diagnosing the strength and organization of low-level mesocyclones in supercells (i.e., 0 -1 km and effective-layer SRH) have led to stark improvements in our ability to forecast significantly tornadic supercells. Unfortunately, despite these advances, our ability to distinguish between nontornadic and tornadic supercell scenarios in real-time is still limited, likely because our understanding of environmental controls on tornado formation is incomplete. A growing body of literature has highlighted the importance of the near-ground shear to the eventual organization of the low-level mesocyclone and probability of tornadogenesis.

In the present work, we have aggregated a proximity sounding database utilizing the High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) for tornado reports from June 2015 to March 2018. Additionally, a null dataset of severe, nontornadic supercells will be generated. A renewed study of a wider range of operational forecasting parameters with novel data sources may lead to clearer boundaries between environments of nontornadic and tornadic supercells than current environmental proxies can provide.