A strong cold front pushed across the Southeast overnight on Friday, October 30. The front brought heavy rain and some strong thunderstorms to the Tennessee Valley. It also brought colder temperatures over the weekend including two days of early morning frost. The SPoRT ADAS depicts the frontal system in both the temperature and moisture fields. Brian Carcione at the Huntsville NWS Office provided the following quote:
Yesterday (Friday) evening was a prime example of the utility of the ADAS for digital forecasting purposes. The ADAS had a better handle on the position and thermal gradient with the cold front than did the alternative RTMA (Real Time Mesoscale Analysis) or LAPS (Local Analysis and Prediction System). As part of the evening forecast update process, I copied the ADAS data into my forecast for the previous several hours and compared it to what was in the forecast the following several hours. It convinced me to make significant changes to the hourly temperature grids so we would handle the thermal ridge (and moisture ridge) and postfrontal cold (and dry) air advection more accurately. The utility of the ADAS also showed up this afternoon (Saturday), as you can easily see the eroding stratus and its effects on temperatures.
The 2000 UTC surface temperature analysis from 30 October is one of the more effective analyses in that it perfectly places the thermal/moisture ridge. The analysis shows the location of the cold front on the Western Alabama border with strong advection of warm air from the south ahead of the front.
2000 UTC 30 October 2009 SPoRT ADAS surface temperature analysis
The 0200 UTC dew point analysis from 31 October is effective in depicting the moisture structure of the front.
0200 UTC 31 October 2009 SPoRT ADAS surface dew point analysis
The Huntsville NWS continues to use the SPoRT ADAS product to initialize some of their gridded forecasts and for verification. SPoRT continues distributing the SPoRT ADAS analysis to other partner offices in the Southern Region.
Nice post. This is a nice example of collaboration and use of NASA research capabilties to improve situational awareness and short-term weather forecasts.