The Utility of ProbSevere v2.0 for Predicting Pulse Severe Thunderstorms

Abstract

Pulse severe storms are single-cell thunderstorms that produce severe wind and/or severe hail for a brief period of time. These storms pose a major warm season forecasting problem since forecasters presently do not have sufficient guidance to know which, if any, of the cells that are observed will become severe. The empirical Probability of Severe (ProbSevere) model, developed by the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS), fuses real-time data to produce short-term (0–60 min), statistically derived probabilistic forecasts of thunderstorm intensity. This study evaluates the ability of ProbSevere to predict pulse severe storms in the southeast United States. ProbSevere objects fitting the usual definition of a pulse severe environment were matched with severe events from