LAMP Upgraded Convection and Total Lightning Probability and “Potential” Guidance for the Conterminous United States

Abstract

Localized Aviation MOS Program (LAMP) convection and lightning probability and “potential” guidance forecasts for the conterminous United States, developed by the Meteorological Development Laboratory (MDL), have been produced operationally and made available to aviation and other users through the National Digital Guidance Database (NDGD) since April 2014. In response to user requests for improved skill and resolution of these forecasts, MDL has recently made extensive upgrades, and a switch to the new LAMP guidance was made in January 2018. Upgrades include improved spatial and temporal resolution of the predictands, which were enabled by first time LAMP use of finescale radar reflectivity products from the Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor (MRMS) system, total lightning observations from a ground-based lightning sensing system, and finescale model output from the High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model. This article describes how these new data inputs are applied in the LAMP model to obtain improved skill and sharpness of the convection and total lightning probability forecasts. Strengths and limitations in LAMP performance are shown through verification statistics and example verification maps for a selected intense convective storm case.