1. Chasing April Showers Convective storms on Wednesday 11 th April, 2012 WCD Friday 4 th May, 2012 Thorwald Stein DYMECS research assistant *Not by running around with your camera phone

2. “This April is the wettest in the UK in records which date back to 1910, according to early Met Office figures to the 29 th of the month.” Other interesting facts for April 2012: * Much of the rainfall has been focused on the south of the UK, with England seeing more rainfall than Scotland. * Despite the heavy rain experienced this month, sunshine amounts so far this month have not been far off the average. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2011/wettest- april-on-record Chasing April Showers

3. How tall are these showers? How big are these showers? How much rain (or hail!) falls out? How do these showers evolve? And what did these showers look like in the forecast? Scan them with the Chilbolton Advanced Meteorological Radar, the largest* of its kind in the world! DYMECS Research questions * http://www.stfc.ac.uk/Chilbolton/24821.aspx DYMECS – The Dynamical and Microphysical Evolution of Convective Storms with Emilie Carter, Carol Halliwell, Kirsty Hanley, Robin Hogan, Humphrey Lean, Andy Macallan, John Nicol, and Bob Plant

4. Chasing April Showers Will it be a good day for scanning showers? Forecasts for Wednesday 11 th April, 3pm, show it will be!

5. Chasing April Showers Take 5-minute Nimrod rainfall radar data from MetOffice (1 km resolution) Label individual rainfall regions and store all its properties (location, speed, max rainfall, size) Tracking step 1:

6. Chasing April Showers Score storms by relevant properties (bigger storms, heavier rainfall regions are interesting) Pick a small number of storms to prioritize and send commands to the Chilbolton radar Tracking step 2:

7. Chasing April Showers RHI (Range Height Indicator) scans through convective cores show the height of the storms. Doppler velocity measurements can be used to derive vertical velocities in the convective updraft.

8. Chasing April Showers PPI (Plan Position Indicator) scans at different elevations can be combined into 3D volumes.

9. Several 3D volumes of the same storm can be used to track its evolution in size, peak reflectivities, and height. Chasing April Showers

10. Database of RHI and PPI scans for convective days Statistics on storm height, size, peak rain to evaluate forecast model Run model at higher resolution (Emilie Carter) … or with different microphysics e.g. hail (Kirsty Hanley) Visit our website! http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~dymecs Or read today’s WCD blog!