It's complicated

As expected, it was quite a challenge to pick domains for days 2 and 3. Day 2 was characterized by 3 potential areas of CI: Ohio to South Carolina, Minnesota and Iowa, and Texas. We were trying to determine how to deal with pre-existing convection: whether it was in our domain already or would be in our domain during our assumed CI time. As a result, we determined that the Ohio to South Carolina domain was not going to be as clean-slate as Texas or Minnesota. So we voted out SC.

We were left with Texas (presumed dryline CI) and Minnesota (presumed warm front/occlusion zone). Texas was voted in first but we ended up making the MN forecast in the afternoon. Data for this day did not flow freely, so we used whatever was available (NSSL-WRF, operational models, etc).

The complication for TX was an un-initialized short wave trough emanating from the subtropical jet across Mexico and moving northward. This feature was contributing to a north to south band of precipitation  and eventually triggered a storm in central and eastern OK, well to the east of our domain. The NSSL WRF did not produce the short wave trough and thus evolved eastern TX much differently than what actually occurred despite having the subtropical jet in that area.  So we were gutsy in picking this domain despite this short wave passing through our area. We were still thinking that the dryline could fire later on but once we completed our spatial confidence forecast (a bunch of 30 percents and one 10 percent) and our timing confidence (~+/- 90 minutes) it was apparent we were not very confident.

This was an acceptable challenge as we slowly began to assemble our spatial forecast, settling on a 3 hour period in which we restrict ourselves to worrying only about new, fresh convection by spatially identifying regions within our domain where convection is already present. This way we don't have to worry about secondary convection directly related to pre-existing convection. We also decided that every forecaster would enter a spot on the map where they thought the first storms would develop (within 25 miles of their point). This makes the forecast fun and competitive and gets everyone thinking not just about a general forecast but about the scenario (or scenarios if there are multiple in the domain).

The next stop on this days adventure was MN/IA/Dakotas. This was challenging for multiple reasons:
1. The short wave trough moving north into OK/KS and its associated short wave ridge moving north northeast
2. the dryline and cold front to the west of MN/IA,
3. the cold upper low in the Dakotas moving east north east.

The focus was clear and the domain was to be RWF. This time we used a bigger domain in acknowledgement of the complex scenario that could unfold. You had the model initiating convection along the warm front, along the cold front in NE on a secondary moisture surge associated with the short wave trough, and a persistent signal of CI over Lake Superior (which we ignored).

We ended up drawing a rather large slight risk extending down into IA and NE from the main lobe in MN with a moderate area extending from south central MN into northern IA. After viewing multiple new products including simulated satellite imagery (water vapor and band differencing from the NSSL WRF and the Nearcast moisture and equivalent potential temperature difference, it was decided that CI was probably with everyone going above 50 percent confidence.

In Minnesota we did quite well, both by showing a gap near Omaha where the moist surge was expected but did not materialize until after our 0-3 UTC time period. Once the moisture arrived ... CI. In MN CI began just prior to 23 UTC encompassing some of our moderate risk even down into IA, yet these "Storms" in IA were part of the CI episode but would not be objectively classified as storms from a reflectivity and lifetime perspective, but they did produce lightning.

The verification for Texas was quite bad. Convection formed to the east early, and to the west much later than anticipated associated with a southern moisture surge into NM from the upper level low migrating into the area nearly 11 hours after our forecast period start.

As it turns out, we awoke this morning to a moderate risk area in OK, but the NM convection was totally missed by the majority of model guidance! The dryline was in Texas still but now this convection was moving toward our CDS centerpoint and we hoped that the convection would move east. A review of the ensemble indicated some members had some weak signals of this convection, but it became obvious that it was not the same. We did key in on the fact that despite the missed convection in the TX panhandle the models were persistent in secondary initiation despite the now-developing convection in southern TX. We outlooked the area around western OK and parts of TX.

In the afternoon, we looked in more detail at the simulated satellite imagery, nearcast, and the CIRA CI algorithm for an area in and around Indiana. This was by far the most complicated and intellectually stimulating area. We analyzed the ensemble control member for some new variables that we output near the boundary layer top (1.2 km AGL roughly): WDT: the number of time steps in the last hour where w exceeded 0.25 m/s and convergence . We could see some obvious boundaries as observed, with a unique perspective on warm sector open celled convection.

In addition we used the 3 hour probabilities of CI that have been developed specifically for CI since these match our chosen 3 hour time periods. We have noticed significant areal coverage from the ensemble probabilities which heavily weight the pre-existing convection CI points. Thus it has been difficult to assign the actual new CI probabilities since we cant distinguish the probability fields if two close proximity CI events are in the area around where we wish to forecast. That being said, we have found them useful in these messy situations. We await a clean day to see how much a difference that makes.