Description of products and tools
Orography
Main - shows the geographical map of Hungary and its surroundings based on SRTM1 high resolution satellite data. The positions of main regions, cities, rivers and lakes are depicted and annotated. The tasks in the training were specified for the cities of Komárom (Hungary) and Komárno (Slovakia) and for the city of Szeged (Hungary).
AROME - shows the AROME model orography (2.5 km resolution)
ECMWF-HR1 - shows the ECMWF model orography (nearly 10 km resolution)
Satellite Data
Airmass RGB:
http://www.eumetrain.org/rgb_quick_guides/quick_guides/AirmassRGB.pdf
HRV RGB:
http://www.eumetrain.org/rgb_quick_guides/quick_guides/HRVcloudRGB.pdf
24h MicrophysicsRGB:
http://www.eumetrain.org/rgb_quick_guides/quick_guides/24MicroRGB.pdf
Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models:
AROME - is a non-hydrostatic limited area model (LAM), which is currently run at a horizontal resolution of 2.5 km. It enables explicit simulation of deep convection and accompanying phenomena (e.g. thunderstorm outflow). The model is updated every 3 hours, uses ECMWF model inputs for initial and boundary conditions and local data assimilation. The training products show forecasts of precipitation (color shades), 10m wind (arrows) and 10m wind gusts (shades of grey, starting from 10 m/s).
ECMWF - is a global hydrostatic model. The products presented in the training material have a horizontal resolution of 10-15 km. In severe weather forecasting it is widely used for determining synoptic-scale and meso-scale conditions and the environment of convective storms. The products show:
- Mean Sea Level Pressure (MSLP) - white lines (numbered)
- 2m temperature - color shades and dotted lines (numbered)
- 10m wind (arrows, m/s)
- 850 and 500 hPa geopotential height and temperature (AT500 and AT850) maps:
- geopotential height (m) - white lines
- temperature (°C) - color shades
- wind (arrows, m/s)
- 300 hPa map:
- geopotential height (m) - grey lines
- wind speed (m/s) - color shades
- 300 hPa wind (arrows, m/s)
- 700 hPa map:
- geopotential height (m) - grey lines
- vertical velocity (0.1 Pa/s) - color shades, where bluish color (negative values) stands for upward motion while green, yellow and red (positive values) stand for downward motions
- 700hPa wind (arrows, m/s)
- 925 hPa map:
- geopotential height (m) - white lines
- equivalent potential temperature (K) - color shades and dotted lines (numbered)
- 925 hPa wind (arrows, m/s)
ECMWF-INDEX - a set of indices is calculated using ECMWF data to determine the convective environment.
CAPE - The CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy) index (J/kg) presented here is calculated considering the ascent of a surface-based parcel (SBCAPE). The calculation procedure uses the virtual temperature.
CIN - Convective Inhibition (J/kg), which is also based on a surface parcel (SBCIN). It is defined only for areas that can be conditionally unstable (i.e. there is also CAPE) and represents the amount of energy that prevents the parcel from reaching its level of free convection. Conditionally stable areas have a light greenish background color. Small CIN values are dark green, while medium and large CIN are shown in yellowish-to-grey shades.
RH0-3km - Average relative humidity in the lowest 3 km above the surface. This is often used by forecasters to estimate potential for dilution of the ascending air parcel by the environmental dry air. The threshold for deep convection over Hungary is about 50%. If the air is relatively very dry, cloudiness would usually not form or evaporate, even if LFC is reached.
RH850-600hPa - Average relative humidity calculated between the 850 and 600 hPa levels, which is used to estimate the potential dilutive effect of a dry environment on convective updrafts and downdrafts. The lines are the streamlines of the 850-600 hPa mean wind.
Shear0-6km - Deep layer shear (DLS, in m/s). This is the magnitude of the wind shear vector between 10 m and 6 km above the surface. Moderate-to-high wind shear (exceeding 15 m/s) is favourable for the generation of long-lived supercell storms or mesoscale convective systems. Supercell storms or other storms exhibiting rotation can also occasionally form in low shear conditions, but that is less likely. DLS is shown in colored shades. The 0-6 km mean wind is often used to estimate the speed of the thunderstorm propagation (arrows, m/s).
TPW - Total precipitable water (mm). It represents the amount of water in the entire column of the atmosphere, should all the water precipitate. The convective precipitation can, however, exceed the TPW. It is often used as a measure of atmospheric moisture content.
INCA - is a nowcasting system originally developed by ZAMG and also used in Hungary. It has a 1 km horizontal resolution and it assimilates various observations and NWP data. The training products show the outputs of the precipitation nowcast, which are updated hourly. INCA calculates storm motion vectors from radar reflectivity and NWP data (arrows, m/s). These are used to predict the advection of detected thunderstorm cells and calculate the precipitation (here hourly amount, in mm, color shaded). The nowcasts indicate the propagation but not the evolution of precipitation patterns. The depicted wind gusts (grey shades, m/s) are not of convective origin.
Radar - The radar reflectivity product shows a mosaic (composite) image of measurements from the four Hungarian C-band radars, which cover the territory of Hungary and its neighbourhood. The two target locations (the cities of Komárom and Szeged) mentioned earlier are within 100 km of the closest radar station. The products depict Column Maximum radar reflectivity (Cmax, dBz) derived from full volume scans.
SYNOP - Mesosynoptic-scale map showing measurements from synoptic stations (which do not include all available stations in Hungary) and the distribution of the mean sea level pressure (lines, hPa). Note that the MSLP lines are smoothed and can sometimes be affected by false measurements; these have not been corrected afterward and are presented as they were in the operational conditions. However, local minima and maxima can also be caused by convective activity or orographic effects.
TEMP - depiction of soundings (Stüvegram) showing the vertical course of temperature (thick solid line), dew point (dashed line) and wind (barbs). Conditionally unstable (red) and stable (blue) areas were calculated with the assumption that the parcel had reached its convection temperature (T-cum). The smaller window shows the hodograph, while the larger window includes the values of several convective parameters:
- SSI (Showalter Index) - http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Stability_index
- K (K index) - http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/K_index
- NI (Humidity Index) - (T - Td)850 + (T - Td)700 + (T - Td)500 (Litynska et al., 1976)
- TT (Total Totals index) - http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Stability_index
- CT (Cross Totals index) - http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Stability_index
- VT (Vertical Totals index) - http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Stability_index
- PW (Precipitable Water) - http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Precipitable_water
- LI (Lifted Index) - http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Stability_index
- TI (Thompson Index) - KI (K Index) - Best Lifted Index
- DCAPE (Downdraft CAPE) - http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Downdraft_convective_available_potential_energy
- MUCAPE (Most Unstable CAPE) - https://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/help/help_mucp.html
- MLCAPE (Mixed Layer CAPE) - https://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/help/help_mlcp.html
- NCAPE (Normalized CAPE) - https://www.spc.noaa.gov/sfctest/help/sfcoa.html
In Hungary, soundings are available from Budapest and Szeged every 12h (00 and 12 UTC). The sounding from Vienna (Wien, Austria) is also often used due to its proximity to northwestern Hungary.
* TECHNICAL NOTE: For the best interactive experience throughout this module please use the most recent versions of Firefox or Internet Explorer browser!