92nd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting (January 22-26, 2012)

Tuesday, 24 January 2012: 11:30 AM
Tornado Detection and Damage Estimation Using Polarimetric Radar
Room 357 (New Orleans Convention Center )
David J. Bodine, Advanced Radar Research Center, School of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK; and M. R. Kumjian, A. J. Smith, R. D. Palmer, A. Ryzhkov, and P. L. Heinselman

OU-PRIME has been used to collect high-resolution polarimetric radar data from over 20 tornadoes in central Oklahoma, providing an opportunity to examine tornadic debris signatures (TDSs) for different tornado intensities, in different precipitation environments, and at different distances from the radar. The reliability of the TDS for tornado detection will be discussed, and the TDS will be compared to damage surveys. The possible capability to remotely determine the intensity of damage based on the TDS will also be investigated. Several parameters derived from the TDS will be tested to determine what parameters are best correlated with damage intensity. Some parameters include the spatial coverage of the TDS based on varying cross-correlation coefficient thresholds, minimum cross-correlation coefficient values, maximum reflectivity, and the maximum height of the TDS. The TDS parameters will be compared to other possible methods of determining tornado intensity, such as azimuthal shear. The TDSs at C-band will be compared to observations of TDSs from KOUN, a polarimetric WSR-88D. The results suggest that the TDS could provide real-time information about tornado damage and intensity.

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