June 2012 Issue

Randy Peppler describes the instruments on top of the mobile mesonet.

CIMMS researcher showcases weather research to local tribe

Friday, June 15th, 2012  ·  Posted in Outreach News

NSSL’s mobile mesonet was on display for the third year at the Apache Tribe Environmental Camp, held annually near Apache or Fort Cobb Okla., about one hour southwest of Oklahoma City.

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We celebrate Doug Forsyth! Retiring at the end of June…

Friday, June 1st, 2012  ·  Posted in People News

Doug Forsyth, Chief of NSSL’s Radar Research and Development Division is retiring at the end of June. We celebrate Doug’s career and his character by reposting this 2008 spotlight story…”Changes in latitudes…Jimmy Buffett goes south, but Doug Forsyth goes north.”

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Hurricane Irene in 2011

2012 Atlantic hurricane season to provide CI-FLOW research opportunity

Friday, June 1st, 2012  ·  Posted in Forecast Research News

The 2012 Atlantic hurricane season will provide a valuable research opportunity for the Coastal and Inland-Flooding Observation and Warning Project (CI-FLOW).

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The Oklahoma Lightning Mapping Array can map up to twelve thousand points per second, and so can reveal where a flash originates and how it develops in a storm. An example of a flash is shown in this figure. The top two panels show altitude as a function of time. The second of these is a more expanded view, from 20:00.6 - 20:02.2 UT (a period of 1 minute 36 seconds). Color coding indicates elapsed time, with purple being earliest and red being latest. The bottom left panel shows the view one would have from above the storm. The panel just above it shows the view from the south. The lower-right panel shows the view, rotated on its side, one would see from the west. The tics in these three panels are labeled in kilometers from the center of the lightning mapping array, so the east and north dimensions are each 120 km. This flash is longer-lasting and somewhat larger than "typical" lightning flashes. It spans roughly 80 km (50 miles) in the east-west direction. Note how the flash structure extends outward from the dark blue region in which the flash began. This case also shows the classic bi-level structure of flashes. In this case, as in the majority of flashes, lightning channels in the upper layer (well, ok, the layer tilts downward to the west) propagate through positive charge, and channels in the lower layer propagate through negative charge. This bi-level lightning structure results because most storms tend to have a large region of positive charge above a large region of negative charge.

Oklahoma lightning mapping array now expanded

Monday, May 21st, 2012  ·  Posted in Warning Research News

NSSL’s Field Observing Facilities Support (FOFS) team just finished installing seven new lightning mapping stations in the Oklahoma Lightning Mapping Array (OKLMA).

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