Nowcasting using MZZU to help bridge the gap between St. Louis and Kansas City National Weather Service radars
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Mid-Missouri is on the cusp of St. Louis and Kansas City's National Weather Service radars, creating a coverage gap that can limit severe weather detection and put property and lives at risk. This study includes the University of Missouri's X-band research radar, MZZU, into an experimental radar grid to measure the impact of using it to bridge this gap. Using pySTEPS, a nowcasting environment, we ran a series of nowcasts with an experimental radar grid and an NWS grid, testing four different nowcast systems across four different storm case studies. A single system was selected for direct comparison between each grid, focusing on statistics such as Accuracy, Critical Success Index, False Alarm Ratio, False Alarm Rate and others. The NWS radar grid outperformed the experimental radar grid in nearly every statistic, but both the NWS and experimental grids performed equally during the initial 10-minute lead times. Attenuation from heavy precipitation affected the performance of the combo grid and led to worse nowcasts. The experimental grid shows potential for very short-term forecasts if attenuation can be fixed.
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M.S.