Combined Atmospheric Sounding/Cloud Imagery—A New Forecasting Tool
Abstract A method for displaying sounding and cloud information in a composite image is described. Examples are shown to illustrate how a forecaster may use a time sequence of these images to monitor changes in atmospheric moisture and stability antecedent to convective weather and at the same time monitor the cloud developments resulting from these atmospheric moisture and stability tendencies. The image products are now being produced in real time at the University of Wisconsin for an assessment of their operational utility as a part of the NOAA Operational VAS Assessment (NOVA) program. It is likely that the sounding/cloud imagery product will be available to all forecast centers in 1986, after the VAS data acquisition and processing system becomes fully operational.