Yesterday the forecasters on our desk discovered this interesting case of false alarms from the UAH SATCAST. An ongoing MCS was located over NE TX and, notable on the visible imagery, in the stable air behind the convection are a series of gravity waves. The UW-CIMSS Cloud Top Cooling (CTC) algorithm showed no detections of rapid cooling in this area, which makes sense given the stable air; however, the SATCAST had a number moderate Strength of Signal detections. There was much discussion between the forecasters on the reasons for these false alarms, and one thought was that it almost seemed like the algorithm was picking up on the waves simply because they were growing cloud objects. If this is the case, it is certainly notable and an improvement needs to be made as this relatively new algorithm continues to mature.
 |
| 120612 1815 UTC SATCAST and VIS |
 |
| 120612 1815 UTC Cloud Top Cooling (CTC) |
No comments:
Post a Comment