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Meeting Reviews meeting reviews Summary of the 14th Conference on Severe Local Storms, 29 October-1 November 1985, Indianapolis, Indiana John T. Snow1 Conference Chairman 1. Introduction ferent from the distribution of thunderstorms producing strong straight-line winds. The distribution for the hail-pro- The Fourteenth Conference on Severe Local Storms was ducing storms was also different from that of tornado-pro- held in conjunction with the Sixth Conference on Hydrome- ducing storms. The results provide the forecaster with useful teorology. The conference was organized by the AMS Com- background information concerning the possibilities of dif- mittee on Severe Local Storms,2 working through a Program ferent types of events, and pose some intriguing questions for Committee.3 The conference format consisted of 12 sessions storm dynamicists. with oral presentations (83 papers), two of which were held Benjamin and Lanicci described their efforts to model the jointly with the Sixth Conference on Hydrometeorology, and evolution of the background environment in two specific two poster sessions (32 presentations). Details of the confer- cases: SESAME (Severe Environmental Storms and Meso- ence program and titles of all papers presented are to be scale Experiment) I (10-11 April 1979) and SESAME IV (8-9 found in the June 1985 issue of the BULLETIN. May 1979), focusing on the effects of soil moisture and topog- raphy on the movement of the dryline. The role of these two parameters in modulating the behavior of the dryline was clearly shown in their results, as was the impact of dry air 2. Session summaries flowing northward out of the central Mexican plateau. Hales and Kelly discussed the impact of the warning-veri- The following summaries were prepared from material pro- fication program of the National Weather Service (NWS) on vided by those who chaired the individual sessions, and from the statistics for damaging straight-line winds and large hail. notes taken by the Program Chairman. The summaries re- Their analysis indicates the verification data base has some flect only those papers actually presented. Sessions 9 and 10 shortcomings, reflecting both a bias due to population dis- were conducted as joint sessions with the Sixth Conference tribution and differing verification procedures between fore- on Hydrometeorology and are not summarized here. cast offices. They recommend a rethinking of the verification process. a. Session 1: Dynamic Climatology of Severe Local Storms Barker and Banta identified preferred regions for thunder- Colquhoun and Shepherd reported on the use of a simple storm formation over the central Colorado Rocky Moun- thunderstorm model and proximity soundings to estimate tains using geosynchronous-satellite imagery. They found the mass flux through more than 150 tornado-producing that the wind regime on a given day determines which ridge thunderstorms. It was found that there appeared to be a good lines will act as source regions. Orographic lifting, leeside correlation between mass flux and observed tornado inten- convergence, channeling effects, and wake effects could all sity; this was incorporated into a logic sheet to aid in the fore- be identified as playing roles in activating the formation of casting of severe thunderstorms. storms. In a study of the climatology of nontornadic severe thun- Tecson and Fujita reported on their continued analysis of derstorms over a 29-year period, Schaefer et al. found that the DAPPL (Damage Area Per Path Length) tornado data the distribution of large hail-producing storms was quite dif- set, here focusing on providing probability of occurrence of maximum wind speeds. The peak wind speed with a 10~4 probability of occurrence was 65 m • s"1 in central Oklahoma; with a 10"7 probability, the peak values were 137 m • s-1 in Ok- 1 Department of Geosciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, lahoma and 138 m*s_1 in northern Alabama. IN 47907. 2 AMS Committee on Severe Local Storms: Ralph A. Petersen (Chairman), Ronald L. Alberty, Howard B. Bluestein, Donald W. Burgess, Dennis W. Feltgren, Dennis H. McCarthy, Frederick P. b. Session 2: Remote-Sensing Techniques I (F. R. Robertson Ostby, Jr., Richard Rotunno, John T. Snow,and M. Steven Tracton. T A. Seliga) 3 Program Committee: John T. Snow (Chairman), Henry E. Fuel- berg, Gerald M. Heymsfield, Robert H. Johns, Dennis H. McCarthy, Papers in this session concentrated on two areas of research: Ralph A. Petersen, W. David Rust, and Robert E. Schlesinger. the use of satellite data to define convective environments, 1144 Vol. 67, No. 9, September 1986 Unauthenticated | Downloaded 09/23/21 10:03 AM UTC Bulletin American Meteorological Society 1145 and the study of convective storm structure as revealed by veal the existence of regular wave-like features about 1 km Doppler radar. wide near the surface gust front in a thunderstorm outflow. Weaver et al. used VAS (VISSR [visible infrared spin scan Dual- and multiple-Doppler analyses have increased our radiometer] atmospheric sounder) satellite soundings to knowledge of the air motions within storms and, with recent augment surface observations in defining the thermody- mathematical retrieval techniques, have been used to reveal namic structure of the lower troposphere in convectively ac- the pressure and temperature perturbation fields as well. tive environments. Delineation of different air masses was Roux described the recovered three-dimensional wind field accomplished via buoyant energy calculations. The absorp- and perturbation thermodynamic fields for a tropical squall tion of radiant energy by water vapor in regions of clear air line. From these the vertical fluxes and lateral exchange rates was found to be of particular importance. In a related study, of heat and along- and across-the-line momentum were de- Hillger et al. used single field-of-view soundings to study spa- termined as a function of height to estimate the influence of tial variations in low-level precipitable water. Soundings the squall line on its environment. Schmidt and cotton ana- based on the 35-km TOVS (TIROS [Television and Infrared lyzed the dual-Doppler wind field and evolving reflectivity Observational Satellite] Operational Vertical Sounder) data features of a bow-shaped cell within a squall line to reveal the were able to depict mesoscale variability without the aid of possible source of the surface outflow air. surface observations in the retrieval process. Belunik et al. Airborne Doppler lidar, a newer sensing tool still in its used three-minute rapid-scan GOES (Geostationary Opera- testing phase, is now demonstrating its ability to accurately tional Environmental Satellite) data to retrieve vertical wind measure winds in the subcloud region. Papers by Emmitt and shear during two cases from the Cooperative Convection by McCaul and Bluestein described the use of NASA's (Na- Precipitation Experiment (CCOPE). Cloud-height assign- tional Aeronautics and Space Administration) airborne ment was done by correcting infrared (IR) cloud tempera- Doppler-lidar system to examine the subcloud outflow re- tures for partially filled fields-of-view and consideration of gion of thunderstorms, revealing the vortices and divergent cloud shadows. It was noted that mesoscale convective com- flow patterns occurring near the outflow boundaries. Storm- plex (MCC)-like systems are not restricted to environments top data gathered via satellite IR imagery and high-altitude with weak vertical wind shear. Funk and Fuelberg used VAS airborne lidar and radiometer systems also provide impor- soundings to calculate vertical motions by three techniques; tant severe-weather information. The utility of lidar returns results from the quasi-geostrophic w-equations were judged in indicating the height and density structure of storm tops superior to estimates obtained from both the vorticity and was illustrated by Sinhirne et al. Smith and Partacz discussed the adiabatic thermodynamic equations. a possible relationship between cloud-top warming based on Using a case study of a severe storm, Brown demonstrated satellite IR data and the subsidence of high-speed tropo- that a thunderstorm can act as a barrier to the environmental spheric air initiating surface downbursts that lead to mesocy- winds and so contribute to the generation of cyclonic and anti- clone and subsequent tornado formation. cyclonic motion at the right and left flanks, respectively. Storm movement toward the right was found to result from successive initiation of new updrafts as opposed to propaga- d. Session 4: Analysis and Display of Data (Poster Session ) tion due to rotation. Johnson performed multiple-Doppler (E. M. Agee) analyses of a storm to evaluate the effects of including sur- This session displayed a diversity of approaches to incorpo- face mesonet data as a lower-boundary condition. Inclusion rating new data sources and burgeoning new technologies of such data resulted in a significant directional shift of the into the forecasting arena. Because the new data sets and horizontal wind vector, with the effects being concentrated in technological capabilities are unfamiliar to most forecasters, the lowest one kilometer. Parsons et al. combined Doppler- the majority of papers in this session were exploratory. derived three-dimensional wind fields with the Klemp-Wil- Papers by Lin et al., Maier and Hiscox, McNulty et al., helmson numerical cloud model to study microbursts. They Wade et al., and Pratte et al. were concerned with prospective found that negative buoyancy resulting
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