• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Updraft Speed 88D Data.

Joined
Jul 2, 2014
Messages
50
Is there any good way to estimate supercell updraft speeds using 88D data? The archives I have do NOT have dual-pol products. Can you use divergence as a proxy for updraft strength potential? Perhaps dervive an equation using the strength of velocities in the mid-level mesocyclone?
 
There was a presentation at the Central Iowa NWA 2018 Severe Storms & Doppler Radar Conference about this. They have an archive of past presentations, but unfortunately presentations from 2018 have yet to be posted. However, you can read the abstract for the presentation here:

www.iowa-nwa.com/conference/files/2018_NWA_Agenda.pdf

The presentation abstract is approximately half-way through the document, and is titled "Multiple-Doppler Analysis of Severe Storms on 10 May 2016 Utilizing Open Source Software".
 
In theory you can use trigonometry to estimate updraft velocities provided you make a litany of (likely violated) assumptions about updraft structure, but likely you would need to perform a statistical study correlating storm-top divergence to measured updraft velocities. But here's the kicker - very few robust estimates of updraft velocities in severe thunderstorms exist, as it is very difficult to obtain such a measurement, and in many cases, measurements were unintentionally made.
 
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