NSSL has developed many radar-based diagnostic tools to aid forecasters with the assessment of potentially severe thunderstorms. Many of these, such as the Mesocyclone Detection Algorithm and the Hail Detection Algorithm, have been made more robust through the integration of environmental data such as that provided by NSSL's Near-Storm Environment (NSE) algorithm. The NSE algorithm ingests forecast fields from NCEP's Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) model and produces a series of 2-D and 3-D grids of derived environmental variables that are not distributed with standard RUC data.

There is typically a 1 to 2-hour lag time between the model initialization and the time that the RUC forecast is distributed to users. Therefore, the current implementation of the NSE algorithm combines the 1 or 2-hour forecast upper-air fields from the 20-km RUC model with the latest surface data that has been smoothed to a grid using a Barnes objective analysis routine. Several fields produced by the NSE algorithm will be evaluated in regions of real and model-produced convection during Spring 2002 using the 20 km RUC analysis and in situ observations.