Both internally and out into clear air, lightning flickered continually from every part of this wild nighttime supercell that started around sunset, then roamed equatorward across the southwestern Kansas prairie. Flashing at different distances and intensities imparted wondrous colors all over an already astoundingly textured and constructed cloud form. My experience here was ethereal, … [Read more...]
Spiky Deck
With some upscale growth internally, some cell mergers, and a shift into an environment of stronger low-level moisture and shear, a previously poorly organized, high-based, outflow-dominant multicell cluster gradually became a heavy-precipitation supercell. The spiky formations at upper right probably are related to Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, a well-known aspect of fluid dynamics where … [Read more...]
Inflow-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, … [Read more...]
Backshear Catching Rays
A lone and young supercell, vigorous convection propelling a backshearing cloud mass westward, dominated the southern sky. On a day with strong capping and questionable storm development potential, this sunset special was the only daylight storm to form in a 400 mile long swath of dryline between central Oklahoma and south Texas. This storm would last just long enough to cause a few reports of … [Read more...]
Sunset Light through Wavy Supercell
Some supercellular scenes on the Great Plains simply take one's breath away, rendering a primal sense of simultaneous smallness and awe in the face of the Creator's artistic fluidity. Even as I could explain most of this scientifically, that left-brain logic took nothing away from the deeply appreciative, immersive wonderment of the moment on the other side. Shortly after sunset, variably … [Read more...]
Three-State Supercell
The unquestioned highlight of my 2020 storm observing jaunt across the north-central Plains was this mind-bending supercell, on what I thought would be a relative “down day”. Doesn't it go to show that "down" time can be a magnificent time? This mothership-like storm formed as a junky multicell north of Douglas, WY. After a few hours, it turned rightward and evolved into this astonishing … [Read more...]
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