An Evaluation of Two Microburst Prediction Indices and the Introduction of a New Index for Assessing Wet-Microburst Potential for the Central Florida Atlantic Coast in Support of the United States Space Program

An unforecasted microburst event on 16 August 1996 at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility alerted forecasters from the 45th Weather Squadron (45th WS), the provider of weather support to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Air Station (CCAS), to the challenges of wet-microburst prediction. Although there was no operational impact, this event caused the 45th WS to revise their severe thunderstorm forecasting procedures to specifically include microbursts, resulting in the locally developed Microburst-Day Potential Index (MDPI). MDPI provides a several-hour outlook of microburst potential based on the results of the Microburst and Severe Thunderstorm (MIST) project. The 45th WS also conducted a preliminary evaluation of the Wind INDEX (WINDEX) for the Cape Canaveral microburst forecast problem. This paper presents a "tuning" of the MDPI using a statistical technique known as discriminant analysis. Further evaluation of the WINDEX is also presented. Lastly, a new microburst index is introduced incorporating parameters of both the MDPI and WINDEX equations.