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Low topped squall line overnight Wednesday into Thursday


weatherwiz

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I went back and looked at OKX the night of the storms and nROT was sky high on that line in CT thanks to the shear induced signal you described. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed on Long Island and they didn't issue a bogus warning.

 

That's why it's not a fail safe product. You still have to know what you're looking at, and you'll pretty much know it when you see it if you have enough radar experience. Those shear signatures just look different than a rotation one, and they are pretty easy to confirm with velocity.

 

So really my tornado display on GR is a four panel with reflectivity, SRM, CC, and NROT.

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Cool. Thanks for the explanation. I guess Ryan answered my question. I was wondering if it would help reduce false alarms, but you need to know what you are looking at by comparing other products too.

 

Yeah, we don't have a magic way to avoid the high FAR of TORs yet.

 

As an example of NROT, here's Springfield presented with minor commentary.

 

post-44-0-71582400-1456676286_thumb.png

 

NROT over 1.5, and over 100 knots on that couplet just after it emerged from the BOX purple haze.

 

DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED WEAK ROTATION WITHIN THIS STORM. WHILE NOT
IMMEDIATELY LIKELY...A TORNADO MAY DEVELOP. REMAIN CALM...BUT TAKE
COVER NOW. GO TO AN INTERIOR ROOM ON THE LOWEST FLOOR OF A STURDY
BUILDING. AVOID WINDOWS.
 
:yikes:
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What's interesting in the Springfield case is the original TOR near Belchertown had an 0.5 NROT of under 0.70 (it was over 1 at 0.9 degrees but 0.5 degrees is already 6000 feet AGL out there).

 

Springfield was immediately well over 1.00 NROT once the velocity image was not affected by purple haze.

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Checking back on the ENX radar, and NROT hit 0.80 as soon as the couplet formed (around 4:02 PM) and provided about 15 minutes lead time on the tornado touchdown.

 

Of course it was also over 1 on the Belchertown TOR, so sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. I would rather have the TOR out on an NROT of 1 than not, so you just accept that some warnings will false alarm.

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Actually I misspoke, AWIPS does AGL, but I believe GR is above radar level.

If you hover the cursor over the spot in question you'll see a height readout on the bottom of the application.

Oh sweet thanks. I think I know what you're talking about. I just never knew what that number meant

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That's why it's not a fail safe product. You still have to know what you're looking at, and you'll pretty much know it when you see it if you have enough radar experience. Those shear signatures just look different than a rotation one, and they are pretty easy to confirm with velocity.

 

So really my tornado display on GR is a four panel with reflectivity, SRM, CC, and NROT.

 

Yup. The only other issue I could see with people relying too heavily on nROT is that really small (spatially) mesocyclones with a tiny but strong couplet frequently look pretty meh on nROT. Especially for a QLCS or a mini supercell when you may only have a few inbound/outbound pixels in the couplet it can be not so hot. 

 

I find myself using regular BV more than SRM a lot in severe situations and using nROT as the 4th panel as a check to make sure I'm not missing anything. 

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Checking back on the ENX radar, and NROT hit 0.80 as soon as the couplet formed (around 4:02 PM) and provided about 15 minutes lead time on the tornado touchdown.

 

Of course it was also over 1 on the Belchertown TOR, so sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. I would rather have the TOR out on an NROT of 1 than not, so you just accept that some warnings will false alarm.

 

It's not like the setup was ripe for tornadoes or anything :axe: 

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Yup. The only other issue I could see with people relying too heavily on nROT is that really small (spatially) mesocyclones with a tiny but strong couplet frequently look pretty meh on nROT. Especially for a QLCS or a mini supercell when you may only have a few inbound/outbound pixels in the couplet it can be not so hot. 

 

I find myself using regular BV more than SRM a lot in severe situations and using nROT as the 4th panel as a check to make sure I'm not missing anything. 

 

It's easier when you have 3 screen of AWIPS to work with.  :thumbsup:

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