This storm spun out of the Flint Hills as part of a chain of mostly messy supercells, carrying with it a load of heavy precipitation and the related baggage of smaller storms dragging along its immediate rear flank. Somehow, unlike with most of several other low-level circulations we saw on this fine day of eastern Kansas storm observing, this strongly rotating and classically formed wall cloud … [Read more...]
Skinny, Tilted Cb Updraft Tower
Some form of this resilient convective plume had been around for many hours, though it crawled only a few tens of miles in its entire lifespan. It began in mid-afternoon as the "Cheyenne Wells Antisupercell" and outlived a line of "landspout"-producing storms to its south. Its rear-flank core treated us to a nice double rainbow north of Kit Carson. Then we found a motel and restaurant in town, … [Read more...]
Vault CG
As a spectacular low-precipitation (LP) supercell continued to spin away into the deepening nightfall, it occasionally erupted with a wonderful lightning display. The first was cloud-to-air, this one cloud-to-ground. The stroke here originated atop the visual vault region of the storm: a notoriously productive area for lightning thanks to the intense air motions, rapid charge separation, and … [Read more...]
Visual Vault
In radar terms, the vault is a region of a supercell downshear from the updraft (usually to the E or NE of the mesocyclone), where large precipitation reflectors like hail arch high over the relatively precip-free inflow air, forming a vaulted reflectivity pattern in cross-section. [Very large and damaging hail sometimes does fall to the ground from there, however!] This is a clean view directly … [Read more...]
Florida Sea-Breeze Convection
Almost daily during summertime, a rampart of convective towers forms along the sea-breeze fronts over Florida—one near the Gulf Coast, one near the Atlantic Coast. Here is a splendid example of the latter, with a cumulonimbus to the distant north and a neat row of towering cumuli extending southward to very near my location: the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, along the northeastern … [Read more...]
Lone Tree
A single, weather-worn old elm tree stood tall: a lonely sentinel amidst the desolate chill of the snowy prairie. The ground fog of sunrise hung low over winter's blanket, casting a hint of eerie mystery across frigid stillness. What if the tree could talk? Its stories would put to shame those of even the most grizzled old human weather observer. A violent tornado passed over this spot in … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 190
- 191
- 192
- 193
- 194
- …
- 385
- Next Page »