Hook echo on WxWorx

[Dan Robinson]

Normally a supercell's hook echo doesn't show up on WxWorx, but on April 18 one showed up nicely on the storm just southwest of St. Louis as it crossed I-44:

http://wvlightning.com/temp/april18hook1.jpg

http://wvlightning.com/temp/april18hook3.jpg

This is one of the better ones I've seen on ThreatNet. The shear scit was showing 115mph on the first image above.

 

[Mikey Gribble]

That's the first one I have ever seen too.

 

[Tony Cook]

Why don't hooks normally show up on WxWorx? I don't really know much about WcxWorx, so forgive me if thsi is a dumb question.

Thanks,
TonyC

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Why don't hooks normally show up on WxWorx? I don't really know much about WcxWorx, so forgive me if thsi is a dumb question.

Thanks,
TonyC
[/b]

WxWorx displays composite reflectivity, which means that it shows the maximum reflectivity on all tilts. Normally, the hook echo is a low-level radar feature, since echo overhang on higher tilts tends to "fill in" the area east and northeast of the 'hook' that is visible on the low tilts. In other words, precipitation in the middle and upper parts of the updraft shows up as reflectivity on the higher tilts, while there tends to be less precipitation in the lower part of the udpraft, resulting in no visible reflectivity on the 88D. Of course, storms come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, so any 'textbook' application is tough.

 

[Tony Cook]

Thanks. Makes perfect sense. I have never considered WxWorx seriously just b/c of the cost. This seems like a serious limitation to me, though. What is the driving factor behind not providing individual tilts?

Thanks again,
TonyC

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Thanks. Makes perfect sense. I have never considered WxWorx seriously just b/c of the cost. This seems like a serious limitation to me, though. What is the driving factor behind not providing individual tilts?[/b]

XM satellite bandwidth.

Of course, why not allow the user to select a subdomain, or turn off receipt of unused products so that the saved bandwidth could be used for higher resolution reflectivity data?

Bear in mind that the "land" sector of the ThreatNet customer base is the smallest, compared to the Marine and Aviation sectors. Therefore, expect that the majority of software mods to be aimed at them, not us. BTW - I still haven't heard of any upgrades for 2006. Anyone else?

 

[rdale]

"Of course, why not allow the user to select a subdomain, or turn off receipt of unused products so that the saved bandwidth could be used for higher resolution reflectivity data?"

How would the satellite know that the user turned off products? It's a national broadcast of all data, not an individualized pipe.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

How would the satellite know that the user turned off products? It's a national broadcast of all data, not an individualized pipe.[/b]

I don't really know how this could be done. But what if the broadcast had selected products at higher resolutions/smaller domains, and the receiver could be configured to pull specific products rather than the entire suite?

Guess I'll have to check out the WxWorx forum. Gosh - aNOTHer forum...

 

[rdale]

XM gives them a certain amount of bandwidth to broadcast data - my guess is they make more money offering a lot of products for different users as opposed to fine-tuning for one specific industry. If bandwidth were unlimited, I'm sure they would offer up many more hi-res products.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Guess I'll have to check out the WxWorx forum.[/b]

I just signed up for the WxWorx forum. Ouch! There has hardly been any discussion in recent months, and a lot of talk about how disappointed folks are regarding the lack of recent upgrades. Even some folks are talking about making the switch to the WSI/Sirius offering (which I know little about). I'm surprised the moderators haven't edited those discussion off their BB.

Or - is there a different WxWorx forum out there that is more active? I'd like to know about upgrades, etc.

 

[Kurt Hulst]

Dan I was about 10 miles to the north when this occured. I thought i saw a wall cloud but it was to dark and to many trees to make ou tanything. I had to head back north to cross the river through STL. It lost the tornado warning shortly before crossing the Mississppi River. I think the SCIT was running around 115 mph at that time of your scan i did see a few 138mph.

 

[Scott Olson]

Can you turn Wx-Worx on and get radar data right away? What about other products? If this is the case then they are constantly re-broadcasting the data and they could concieveably add much more data if they only ran the products through at regular differing intervals. I can't imagine it would be that frustrating waiting 5-10 minutes to get all your WxWorx data if it meant increasing the resolution.

Would seem the simpler thing if they just ditched the Composite, though I doubt this would happen because they don't seem very receptive to feedback, at least from the storm chasing community.

-Scott.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Can you turn Wx-Worx on and get radar data right away? What about other products? If this is the case then they are constantly re-broadcasting the data and they could concieveably add much more data if they only ran the products through at regular differing intervals. I can't imagine it would be that frustrating waiting 5-10 minutes to get all your WxWorx data if it meant increasing the resolution.

Would seem the simpler thing if they just ditched the Composite, though I doubt this would happen because they don't seem very receptive to feedback, at least from the storm chasing community.

-Scott.
[/b]

No you can't get data right away. You have to wait until it broadcasts new data.