William Atkins
Saturday, 05 September 2009 19:31
Science -
Climate
Page 1 of 2
According to Australian researchers, the probability of predicting the next thunderstorm is now better with the use of a technique called THESPA, which can produce “nowcasts” for up to one hour ahead of the storm.
The technique called THESPA stands for Thunderstorm Environment Strike Probability Algorithm.
Australian mathematician and computer scientist
Sandy Dance, at the Weather Forecasting Group within the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research (CAWCR), developed it.
The summary of the research performed on THESPA is written in the
Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology.
Sandy Dance, Elizabeth Ebert, and David Scurrah, all from the CAWCR, authored the article entitled “
Thunderstorm strike probability nowcasting”. (DOI: 10.1175/2009JTECHA1279.1).
According to their abstract,
“To assist in thunderstorm warning, automated nowcasting systems have been developed that detect thunderstorm cells in radar images and propagate them forward in time to generate forecasted threat areas.”
The authors state that current methods are unable to measure the accuracy of their forecasts and are only able to predict a “threat area” in which a storm is likely to occur.
Page two concludes.
