[Part 3 of 3] How do we get supercells and funnel clouds (and in at least one case elsewhere this day, a brief tornado) when surface temperatures feel so cool (50s F)? This isn't a so-called "cold-air" funnel", but instead, a fully supercellular circulation in the cold-core region of a midtropospheric cyclone. It's not common in these parts, but when temperatures 10,000-20,000 feet up are … [Read more...]
Cold-Core Funnel Part 2
[Part 2 of 3] After barely failing to arrive in time for an earlier, brief tornado northwest of Nowata, I zigzagged southeast, looking at a couple other small, interesting but non-tornadic supercells along the way. This one came this close to being a tornado, but despite observing very attentively from only about a mile away, I saw no evidence of a ground circulation strong enough to call it … [Read more...]
Cold-Core Funnel Part 1
[Part 1 of 3] A small but somewhat persistent funnel cloud formed at the tip of a triangular wall cloud. Conveniently, it developed right as I pulled over at this relative flatland clearing—which isn't easy to find in a forested, hilly part of northeastern Oklahoma that more resembles Alabama. Perhaps that's fitting, since a song by the band Alabama was playing on the radio as this funnel twisted … [Read more...]
Long Horizontal Filament
The back end of a bow-echo- producing squall line roared past, leaving behind a trailing precipitation area that occasionally flung filaments and pulses of lightning for miles and miles, between one invisibly separated region of charge and a different one. Elegantly simple, yet intricately complex, this discharge seemed to stretch from one horizon to another, up and down the north-south length of … [Read more...]
Picnic Postponed
The fall 2009 deluges in northeastern Oklahoma didn't spare Fort Gibson Reservoir, which rose by about 15 feet and covered many lakeside recreational facilities, including this picnic area. I suppose, however, that some fish and crawdads may have had a fine feast on any small bits of edible detritus remaining under the table from its last uses before inundation. I should have strung up a … [Read more...]
Microburst and CG
The CG (cloud-to-ground) lightning strike here either penetrated or hit just behind the telltale signature of a microburst: a flared, curving foot at the bottom edge of a precipitation core. No reports of significant damage came from this event, as it struck in a rather dry river valley populated mainly by scorpions, sand burs, switchgrass, and scrub brush. However, wet microbursts like this … [Read more...]
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