An Initial Assessment of the GOES Microburst Windspeed Potential Index

A suite of products has been developed and evaluated to assess hazards presented by convective downbursts to aircraft in flight derived from the current generation of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite. The existing suite of GOES microburst products employs the GOES sounder to calculate risk based on conceptual models of favorable environmental profiles for convective downburst generation. Large output values of the microburst index algorithms indicate that the ambient thermodynamic structure of the troposphere fits the prototypical environment for each respective microburst type. Accordingly, a new diagnostic nowcasting product, the Microburst Windspeed Potential Index, is derived from merging existing algorithms and designed to quantify the most relevant factors in convective downburst generation in intermediate thermodynamic environments. This paper provides an initial assessment of the MWPI algorithm, presents case studies demonstrating effective operational use of the MWPI product, and presents validation results for the 2007 convective season.