1. PROJECT OBJECTIVES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The project was a success. Strong research ties have been forged between the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC) and the National Weather Service Office in Springfield, MO (SGF), and the educational component has been fruitful. A number of presentations at regional and national meetings have resulted from this project, along with several presentations on various aspects of the work by both principal investigators to the students at UMC.
Six objectives were identified for this project. They included a synoptic overview of the 13-14 March 1999 snowstorm, an investigation of its mesoscale features, an evaluation of model performance, an evaluation of heavy snowfall forecasting parameters, and a simulation of the storm using the MASS mesoscale numerical modeling system. Of these, the synoptic and mesoscale investigation dominated the investigators' efforts, as they worked to better understand the processes that generated the snow band. Successful simulations of the storm system were also obtained from the MASS, although the output has not been fully analyzed. The evaluation of model performance has not been fully addressed by the investigators, due largely to time constraints; as such this is considered a topic that will be treated in spite of the official end of the project. The evaluation of heavy snow forecasting parameters failed to generate results which were meaningful beyond the scope of the storm in question.
Still, our work has been successful in establishing the cause of the snow band structure in the 13-14 March 1999 snowstorm over southern Missouri. The sharp gradient in snow totals along the northern periphery of the snow band was shown to be more the result of deformation, and less the product of frontogenesis or the release of moist symmetric instability. These results have been put into an article and submitted to Weather and Forecasting. As of this writing, the article has been accepted pending revision and already resubmitted for the second review.
These findings have been presented at a number of scientific gatherings, including four regional meetings and three at the national level. These efforts are detailed later in this report.
2. RELATED ACCOMPLISHMENTS
In addition to conference presentations, Dr. Market delivered two invited presentations regarding the sponsored work. The first was given to the Department of Earth Sciences, State University of New York, College at Brockport, in May 2000. The second presentation was done for the National Weather Service Office in Weldon Spring, MO (St. Louis), in December 2000. Lastly, Dr. Market was the faculty mentor to several undergraduate assistants, including Ms. Sarah Thompson, whose work won an award for a paper she authored regarding this project. In June 2000, Ms. Thompson, then an undergraduate in the University's Atmospheric Science Program, submitted a paper entitled "Satellite and Upper Air Analyses of the 13-14 March 1999 Snow Event" to the National Weather Association's Meteorological Satellite Applications Award competition. She attended the Associations annual meeting in October 2000 where she received her award.
Mr. Cissell delivered three presentations of our results to the Winter Weather Workshop in Milwaukee, WI, the Missouri Academy of Science, and the local Winter Weather Seminar in Springfield, MO. Also, during the spring of 2001, Mr. Cissell traveled to the University of Missouri-Columbia to convene a challenging, but well-received 2-hour workshop/seminar to the undergraduate synoptic meteorology class regarding this case.
3. SUMMARY OF BENEFITS
University Perspective:
This collaborative effort has been a boon to the Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Missouri, Columbia. In addition to our recent ties with the National Weather Service Office in Pleasant Hill, MO, the present Partner's work with the Springfield, MO, staff represents another new avenue for scientific exchange that had been too long absent from the University. More practically, the results from our work serve as a clarion call to forecasters that sharp precipitation boundaries of this kind are not solely the result of unique mesoscale instabilities.
In addition, several of the undergraduate students employed on the grant (Ms. Rebecca Ebert, Ms. Sarah Thompson, Ms. Angela Oehl, and Mr. Brian Oravetz) have gained hands-on experience with satellite imagery manipulation and interpretation, the rudiments of objective analysis, detailed surface analysis, and the initialization, execution and post-processing of a mesoscale numerical model simulation. Much of this experience was gained using the GEMPAK analysis software. Lastly, the results of our research are being incorporated into Dr. Market's new course offerings: Mesoscale Meteorology and Dynamics and Advanced Synoptic Meteorology. Finally, this project has served as a springboard for further research efforts between UMC and SGF. Already, research on thundersnow is underway, with a synoptic climatology of these events completed, and further work proposed to COMET in a new Partner's proposal.
NWS Perspective:
There has been a heightened interest in winter weather research in our office. Andy Foster and James Taggart have agreed to represent the National Weather Service, Springfield, MO, in a new COMET Partners project with the University of Missouri-Columbia. The partnership of the participants has maintained Mr. Cissell's strong interest and prior commitment to winter weather research.
4. PRESENTATIONS AND PUBLICATIONS
Market, P.S., D. Cissell, and C.E. Halcomb, 2001: On the formation of a strong snowfall gradient in a Midwestern snowstorm: Wave synergy, deformation and the trowal. 18th Conference on Numerical Weather Prediction, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 205-207.
Market, P.S., and D. Cissell, 2001: Formation of a sharp snow gradient in a Midwestern heavy snow event. Accepted to Wea. Forecasting.
Market P.S., D. Cissell, and C.E. Halcomb, 2000: Mesoscale numerical model simulation of the 13-14 March 1999 Missouri Snow Event. 25th Annual Meeting of the National Weather Association, Gaithersburg, MD.
Halcomb, C.E., D. Cissell, and P.S. Market, 2000: An overview of the 13-14 March 1999 snowstorm over southern Missouri. 25th Annual Meeting of the National Weather Association, Gaithersburg, MD.
Thompson, S., 2000: Satellite and upper-air analyses of the 13-14 March 1999 snow event over Missouri. 25th Annual Meeting of the National Weather Association, Gaithersburg, MD.
Market, P.S., M. Sutton, D. Gaede, A. Foster, D. Cissell, C. Halcomb, D. Boehmer, A. Kunz, N. Mikulas, A. Oehl, B.Oravetz, S. Thompson, 2000: The role of deformation in focusing the heavy snowfall gradient in the 13-14 March 1999 Missouri snow event. 57th Eastern Snow Conference, May 2000, Syracuse, NY.
Market and S. Thompson, 2000: The 13-14 March 1999 Missouri Snow Event. Part II: Satellite Imagery Analysis. Missouri Academy of Science Annual Meeting, April 2000, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO.
P.S. Ms. Thompson was an undergraduate assistant on this project; hers was an invited presentation based upon the paper that she wrote for the NWA Satellite Award detailed elsewhere in this document.
Market, P.S., and D. Cissell, 2001: Formation of a sharp snow gradient in a Midwestern heavy snow event. Accepted to Wea. Forecasting.
Cissell, D., 2001: Winter Weather Workshop/Seminar. Presented to students of Meteorological Analysis II at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Cissell, D., 2000: The Northern Boundary of Midwestern Snow Swaths. Winter Weather Workshop, Milwaukee, WI.
Cissell, D., 2000: The Northern Boundary of Midwestern Snow Swaths. Winter Weather Seminar, Springfield, MO.
Market, P.S., M. Sutton, D. Gaede, A. Foster, D. Cissell, C. Halcomb, D. Boehmer, T. Glynn, A. Kunz, N. Mikulas, A. Oehl, B. Oravetz, and S. Thompson, 2000: The 13-14 March 1999 Missouri Snow Event. Part I: The Role of Deformation in Focusing the Heavy Snowfall Gradient. Missouri Academy of Science Annual Meeting, April 2000, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO.
5. SUMMARY OF PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED
None applicable.