Jordan Bell (ST11) is the lead author on a recently accepted paper in Weather and Forecasting. He was joined by co-authors Emily Wisinski (UAH), Andrew Molthan, Christopher Schultz (ST11), Emma Gilligan (NASA Internship Program), and Ms. Kaylee Sharp (UAH). This paper focuses on the methodology used to develop the Hail and Wind Damage Swath (HWDS) Event Database. This database was created to document HWDSs that occurred across the Great Plains and Midwest during the the primary growing season (May - August).
This database was created by combing through daily SPC storm reports and MODIS true color imagery for the years between 2000 and 2020. Additional datasets such as archived severe weather warnings, archived NEXRAD estimated hail size data, and confirmed Storm Data reports were used to confirm identified events. A total of 1646 HWDSs were then analyzed for physical characteristics (length, width, area), spatial distribution, and temporal occurrence (year to year variability, occurrence during time of the day). The paper also looked at the radar characteristics on a subset of the database. This paper's Early Online Release will be available in a couple of weeks.
Read the paper at: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/wefo/aop/WAF-D-22-0210.1/WAF-D-22-0210.1.xml.
