Average SRI is at a maximum 12 to 15 hours before dissipation and decreases fairly steadily as dissipation approaches. For example, some cases were experiencing steady or slightly increasing SRI less than three hours prior to dissipation. Others experienced substantial decreases in SRI but continued to persist for 6 to 12 more hours. Most often, the MCS dissipated in an environment of similar instability to the environment in which it developed and matured. This is not a difference substantial enough for a forecaster to accurately predict dissipation based on lapse rates.
Preliminary results regarding the cold pool vs. ambient shear circulation balance theory are mixed.
Forecasters may be able to use Doppler radar to identify a system that has become cold pool-dominant by noting when a line of outflow is seen pushing ahead of the convective line. However, current results do not suggest that any of the MCSs studied dissipated because the shear circulation overwhelmed the cold pool circulation. Low-level flow alone does not seem to be correlated with MCS dissipation. LLJ parameters are currently being analyzed. Analysis of Eta model parameters is still ongoing, but it appears that some parameters are good predictors of MCS dissipation.