The second IOP has begun, with teams now enroute to their designated observing sites, and serial soundings in progress from the NOAA/ATDD crew at Cullman.

The Ops Center is staffed with about eight people already, mainly looking at today’s forecast and developing mental scenarios of the expected evolution.  Sounding coordination in progress.

We are looking at several computer guidance products that paint a fairly serious picture for the northern AL research domain.  The latest guidance indicates two lines of supercells with possible tornadoes will move across the domain today.  The first should pass Huntsville around 2 PM, and the second toward sunset.

Today’s plan is to set up two finescale dual-Doppler observing lobes in the Huntsville/Decatur area.  These lobes will be the focus for detailed sounding, profiler, surface, and precipitation physics observations.  Two larger lobes will capture much of the research domain, and will provide secondary areas for detailed observations if it appears the storms will skip the smaller lobes.