So much was going on here that it was a saturation of fascination! In the pastel twilight, a laminar shelf cloud—corresponding to the above-surface part of a rear-flank gust front from a supercell off the right side—interacted with the forward-flank region of a trailing supercell, whose base and tilted updrafts can be seen at left. Right above this interaction: intense flickering of cloud-to-air lightning discharges, often at a rate of 2–3 per 5 seconds. Here’s an earlier view of the leading (off-right) supercell from the same place. Influenced by that gust front, the newer supercell was turning more to the right (toward us) in order to maintain surface-based inflow; so we had to bail southward soon.
4 N Sterling KS (11 May 14) Looking W
38.2568, -98.2068Evening Interaction
So much was going on here that it was a saturation of fascination! In the pastel twilight, a laminar shelf cloud—corresponding to the above-surface part of a rear-flank gust front from a supercell off the right side—interacted with the forward-flank region of a trailing supercell, whose base and tilted updrafts can be seen at left. Right above this interaction: intense flickering of cloud-to-air lightning discharges, often at a rate of 2–3 per 5 seconds. Here’s an earlier view of the leading (off-right) supercell from the same place. Influenced by that gust front, the newer supercell was turning more to the right (toward us) in order to maintain surface-based inflow; so we had to bail southward soon.
4 N Sterling KS (11 May 14) Looking W
38.2568, -98.2068