CASA Predicts Tornadoes in its Oklahoma Testbed by Assimilating the Test bed Data.

CASA researchers have demonstrated a numerical computer model that, when seeded with one-hour of assimilated data (at 5-minute intervals) from NWS operational WSR-88D and high-resolution CASA IP1 radars, has successfully predicted, two hours ahead of time, a low-level intensification of rotation that represents realistic tornadogenesis, at almost the exact time of an observed tornado near Minco, Oklahoma. The predicted location is only about 8 km from the observed tornado. The model users a higher-spatial-resolution (400m) grid and assimilates radar data at higher frequencies.