Short-Term Forecasting of Severe Convective Storms Using Quantitative, Multi-Spectral, Satellite Imagery

The development, testing and marketing of a new tool for the short-term (~1 hr) forecasting and warning of severe weather (i.e., tornadoes and large hail), involving the use of multi-spectral satellite imagery, is proposed by Woodley Weather Consultants. The proposal is based on its finding that height profiles of cloud effective radius, showing a deep zone of diffusion droplet growth, little coalescence, no precipitation, and delayed glaciation to near the temperature of homogeneous nucleation (~ -38oC) appear to be associated with tornadoes and hail. The initial analyses suggest that the severe storm signature is an extensive property of the clouds before storm outbreaks, suggesting that the probabilities of tornadoes and large hail and can be obtained at lead times > 1 hour as contrasted with the current NWS warning lead times < 15 minutes. These apparent relationships must be tested in Phase I on an independent set of GOES satellite imagery to refine and test them. This will entail the use of archived and future multi-spectral GOES imagery instead of polar-orbiter satellite data, which were used to derive the relationships. Upon successful completion of Phase I, an operational severe-weather forecasting system, making primary use of current and projected multi-spectral GOES satellite imagery, will be developed under SBIR Phase II and then marketed to potential users.