We present results of the combined application of the novel calibration-independent ZDR hotspot method with the cell tracking system MCIT (Hu et al. 2019; Krause and Klaus 2023, in review). This synergy increases the reliability of the updraft detection by removing spurious ZDR column detections located away from cell cores. The combination of MCIT and ZDR column data also allows a systematic analysis of the relation between the updraft (as detected by the ZDR column) and other storm properties routinely calculated by MCIT. Our approach facilitates the analysis of updrafts throughout a storm’s lifetime; assigning updrafts to larger and longer lived MCIT based cells results in a significant improvement over tracking the comparatively small and volatile ZDR hotspot signature (updraft) itself.
We examine the relative locations of updraft and cell core under different environmental conditions, and based on the tracking of MCIT and ZDR columns over time we try to identify precursors for storm intensification and the development of large hail. We show the potential of the method to identify the fallout of large hail when intense ZDR hotspots vanish over short time spans.
Literature
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