Locating Impulses And Short Waves On Water Vapor Imagery

[Andrew Clope]

I had some difficulty doing this several times this season.

First, my understanding is that the impulse and shortwave is referring to the same thing when the SPC is referring to them in their MD discussions and convective outlook text correct?

Secondly, I have a hard time "seeing" them when going in to look at the water vapor imagery. Maybe this sounds stupid, maybe I'm blind. Sometimes if I play the loops rather than staring at a static image, I can sort of see something, but overall, I really seem to struggle with locating and identifying the impulses that they call out.

I try to compare the winds at h5 and h7 with the water vapor images as the shortwaves should be fairly close in location and orientation I would imagine?

Am I missing something that's obvious to everyone else? Is water vapor the best way to locate them?

Just looking for some suggestions, and education, thanks!

 

[rdale]

Have you started with this? https://www.meted.ucar.edu/training_course.php?id=44

 

[Mark Blue]

I like to use a combination of products and views. I use the WV, Visible, IR, and a predictive satellite/radar combo product. When the SPC mentions a shortwave or piece of energy say in the four corners area, I start with the full CONUS view usually on Visible first and launch several frames, say 12 on COD. Slow the frames down from the default speed until you see the counter clockwise motion they are talking about (Visible and WV), probably a hair downstream from where they first mentioned it being located. Once you have it spotted, then you can view it using the other products and start to drill down with the resolution until you finally get to 1K.

From there you can tie it to mesoanalysis model output at the various levels, but that's another conversation for a different day. That's the quick and dirty layman's method that I typically use, and isn't a substitute for all the points they cover in MetEd.

 

[Andrew Clope]

Thank you very much rdale and Mark Blue, I will check out meded. Thanks again.