Laserfiche WebLink
Section <br />2 <br />2.Deployment of the SOAR research aircraft <br />2.1 The use of FX-Net during SPECTRA weather briefings <br />During the SPECTRA project, suites of data sources were used to ascertain the location of convective <br />initiation and ensuing propagation. A key component of the forecast decision making process was the <br />FX-Net system developed by the Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL). FX-Net is a meteorological PC <br />workstation that provides access to the basic display capability of an Advanced Weather Interactive <br />Processing System (AWIPS) workstation via the Internet. One of the most important factors in <br />determining convective initiation is finding mesoscale features that might create enough lift for <br />thunderstorms to develop. Using FX-Net, the SPECTRA forecaster was able to visualize boundaries and <br />convergent wind fields that might initiate storms by looking at model output data at high resolutions and <br />then overlaying this with actual data, such as radar imagery or upper level winds. In addition, model <br />instability fields could be plotted at high resolution and overlayed onto radar imagery giving an impression <br />for which convective complexes might be encountering the most instability. 850mb and 700mb NGM <br />parcel trajectories were used to determine the trajectories of aerosols. FX-Net was also used in <br />SPECTRA weather briefings as the presentation tools were very useful in pulling weather products up <br />quickly for discussion. <br />Figure 3: FX-Net overlays Eta 0-6km Bulk shear vectors and surface buoyancy 15 Aug 04 00:00Z forecast fields onto the <br />Amarillo composite reflectivity 14 Aug 04 22:49Z. <br />17 <br />