Derechos & Mesoscale Convective Systems 
Review of Research by Mike Coniglio
COMPLETED WORK:
This work examines environments of quasi-linear MCSs and finds variables that discriminate between mature and dissipating MCSs, and "slow" versus "fast" moving MCSs. It also describes the development of a forecasting tool based on logistic regression. This is currently in the review process at Weather and Forecasting.
This work examines the role of upper-level
shear on the structure and maintenance of simulated convective systems. It's not just about the low-level shear!
This work examines the effects of changing
the criteria of identifying derechos on the interpretation of the underlying climatological distribution. Some color version of the figures can be
found at the climatological page. I have
compiled a large data set of derecho events compiled from the years of
1980-2001 (here's a list of the events).
This work examines The variability of large-scale
flow-patterns and physical forcing mechanisms associated with the initial to
early-mature stages of the systems and parameter distributions among a set of
observed proximity soundings and how these environments compare to conclusions
made from past, idealized numerical simulations of DCSs.
This paper summarizes the derecho research related to
my M.S. degree.
In a nutshell, I simulated a progressive derecho using the MM5
modeling system with an initial
condition derived from a composite analysis. I then compared the behavior of
the convective line to that of past idealized simulations that used similar
initial kinematic environments.
OTHER WORK:
Here's a presentation that
I gave at
Here's the powerpoint presentation I gave at the BAMEX forecasters workshop in March 2003.
RELATED LINKS:
ABOUT
DERECHOS page developed by Bob Johns and Jeff
Evans of SPC.
Evans and Doswell 2001 - they examined derecho environments using proximity
soundings.
Burke and Schultz 2004
An examination of cold-season bow echoes to appear in December 2004 Weather
and Forecasting.
Pat Burke's cold-season bow echo page
BAMEX field operations. Includes data from most of May-July of 2003.
Ron Przbylinski's (SOO WFO St. Louis) COMET page
September, 7 1998 Derecho in NY
FUTURE WORK:
As a National Research Council Postdoctoral
Research Associate working with Dr. Harold Brooks at NSSL, I am currently
developing a data set of warm-season MCS events from the past seven years using
the 2-km and 4-km NEXRAD reflectivity composites. The focus will be on the discrimination of
Quasi-Stationary MCS (QSMCS) environments from fast-forward propagating MCS (FPMCS)
environments and on the probability distribution functions of environmental
parameters among the spectrum of MCS types.
Given time, I plan on looking at the surface features of a handful of
QSMCS and FPMCS using the Oklahoma Mesonet data. Stay tuned for results!
More to come soon. Thanks for stopping by.
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