Issue A New Severe Thunderstorm Warning - OCLO

Purpose:

Tasks:

1. It is best to take this jobsheet when you start taking the WES exercises videos in AWIPS Fundamentals. The introduction video will cover how to set up WES on a particular case at a time with radar data.
2. Maximize your main editor by clicking on the maximize button in the upper right of the main pane or double clicking on the editor tab. This collapses the left-hand side panes to provide a large space to work.
3. Load the Text Workstation from the CAVE menu if it is not running (CAVE-> New -> Text Workstation).
4. Load a 0.5Z+SRM8 product and toggle to Z using the “.” key on the keypad. From the Maps menu load Cities and County Names.
   1. Declutter your legend by right clicking and holding on the editor and selecting Hide Legends or by cycling through the legends by pressing the Enter key on the keypad multiple times.
5. Zoom in on an isolated storm with a hail core using the scroll wheel.
6. Navigate through the loop using the left and right arrows and identify the hail core of the storm you are going to track.
7. Navigate to the last frame using the Ctrl + right arrow keyboard shortcut combination.
8. Left click on the WarnGen button.
9. Configure the warning with the track type, product type, and duration:
   1. Track type - One Storm
   2. Product type - Severe T-storm WARNING
   3. Duration - 45min
10. Left click and hold on the “Drag me to Storm” marker and drag it and drop it on the feature you want to track (e.g. hail core).
11. Step back 3-4 volume scans in the main display panel using the left arrow key.
    • This is probably one of the most important, yet frequently overlooked, steps in creating an accurate polygon in WarnGen. Moving the dot on one or two frames typically yields noisy motions and bad polygons.
12. Left click on the feature marker (dot) and drag it and drop it on the same feature you originally tracked in Step 5.
13. Review several frames of the loop forward and backward in time to see if the storm motion vector is accurate for the storm feature you are tracking and that the threat locations ends on the threat you are tracking. The final position will be referenced in the WarnGen text later on.
    • If the track is not satisfactory, navigate to the most recent frame and repeat steps 9-11 to refine the storm motion vector, making sure to leave at least a few frames between repositioning the tracking dot to prevent noisy motions.
14. Click on the Track button to preview the polygon extrapolation.
    • Identify the area of the warning using the hatching and note if there are any unhatched areas within your polygon indicating your clipping threshold has not been met.
    • Identify the W inside each county within your polygon.
15. Click on the Warned/Hatched Area button to preview the clipping.
    • Identify the counties and cities that should be in your warning. You may want to toggle off the radar data by hitting the enter key on the keypad to see the cities and county names better.
16. Left click and drag your vertices to adjust the polygon to properly contain the current threat and where it is moving.
    • Identify the tip of the arrow of your track which represents the extrapolated location of the point you tracked at the end of the warning time. Do not move your vertices closer than the tip of the arrow unless that extends outside your CWA.
    • Watch out for clipping counties on the edge of the polygon where confidence is less and consider modifying/adding vertices accordingly to control the clipping and whether a county is included or excluded.
17. After tracking the storm and finalizing the polygon, then enter the final information about the content of the warning:
    • Basis - Doppler radar indicated
    • Threat - 60 mph wind
    • Threat - Half dollar-size hail (1.25")
    • Locations Impacted - Select for a list of cities
    • Calls to Action - (B) Generic threat - standard CTA
18. Left click the Create Text button.
19. Left click the Enter button on the AWIPS Header Bock popup window.
20. Read the entire warning and identify the NEW VTEC action, ETN, start time, end time, counties, storm motion, threats, and cities.
    • Note VTEC at the top of the warning (e.g. ETN of 5004 in /O.NEW.KOUN.SV.W.5004.130601T0000Z-130601T0045Z/).
21. Note the blue areas are locked and cannot be edited to ensure consistency in the polygon and IBW tags.
22. Type your initials at the bottom of the warning.
23. Left click the Send button.
    • Left click the Go Ahead button. Left click on the second Go Ahead popup window.
24. Click the Restart button to reset WarnGen.
25. Task Complete!