Skew T question

[Keith Brandt]

Here's an excerpt from a sounding from Pivotal weather near my location south of Houston. Dewpoint is 73, dry bulb 81. Why is the parcel lifted from ~90 degrees rather than the environmental surface temperature? Is that the convective temperature?

Thanks,
Keith

 

[Keith Brandt]

Found an answer thanks to Reddit. The parcel is based on the virtual temperature as described by Doswell and Rasmussen in 1994, "The effect of neglecting the virtual temperature correction on CAPE calculations". SHARPpy automatically uses the virtual temperature when it does its CAPE and CIN calculation.