Young and high-based, this multicellular storm offered both a scenic appearance and a lesson in fluid flow. Where the inflow and outflow meet, enhanced lift results. Air hoisted along the gust front, at cloud-base level, is marked by the ragged, discontinuous shelf cloud (a form of arcus cloud attached to the parent storm). The updraft base ahead of the shelf cloud, while bumpy and turbulent, is nowhere nearly as rough as the base behind it, and is more horizontal. By contrast, the base behind the shelf cloud slopes upward atop a deepening cold pool, with rain shafts beneath. Somehow, despite this sort of structure and some mergers with other cells developing ahead of it, the convective cluster slowly would evolve into a supercell.
Purdum NE (3 Jun 20) Looking N
42.065, -100.2563Inflow-Outflow Interface
Young and high-based, this multicellular storm offered both a scenic appearance and a lesson in fluid flow. Where the inflow and outflow meet, enhanced lift results. Air hoisted along the gust front, at cloud-base level, is marked by the ragged, discontinuous shelf cloud (a form of arcus cloud attached to the parent storm). The updraft base ahead of the shelf cloud, while bumpy and turbulent, is nowhere nearly as rough as the base behind it, and is more horizontal. By contrast, the base behind the shelf cloud slopes upward atop a deepening cold pool, with rain shafts beneath. Somehow, despite this sort of structure and some mergers with other cells developing ahead of it, the convective cluster slowly would evolve into a supercell.
Purdum NE (3 Jun 20) Looking N
42.065, -100.2563