The Severe Weather Warning Process Using the WSR-88D at the Raleigh Weather Forecast Office
Abstract
For over a century, meteorologists have been attempting to improve severe thunderstorm and tornado forecasts. In recent years, the Doppler radar was developed in an attempt to increase severe weather warning timeliness and accuracy. This research is a preliminary analysis of the severe weather warning process using the WSR-88D at the Raleigh Weather Forecast Office (RDU WFO). A schematic representation of the warning process was developed based on 68 thoroughly documented warnings during 1995. A flow-chart has been developed to describe the decision making process. Most warnings have an initiator followed by a trigger. The initiator causes the radar operator to consider the issuance of a warning and marks a period of intensive cell investigation. A final event, termed the trigger, leads to the decision to issue the warning. The trigger for severe thunderstorm warnings is most frequently a reflectivity based Doppler radar product while for tornado warnings Doppler velocity products are most commonly utilized. Ground truth reports are still important in the Doppler radar era especially for the decisions not to issue warnings and quick decisions to issue warnings, called immediate trigger warnings. After the warning is issued, 85 percent of the warned counties are called leading to the verification of 38 percent of the warnings during the severe weather episode. Seventy percent of these severe weather reports are accurate if Storm Data is used as the ground truth.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1996
- Accession Number
- ADA311827
Entities
People
- Debra K. Hoium
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology