Our third central Montana supercell of the afternoon was the largest and longest-lasting for us, paralleling the highway from Denton to Roy, mainly to the route's north. Here, it wrapped up a tight low-level mesocyclone, only to mostly undercut itself with outflow in the next ten minutes, then wrap up once again north of Roy. Both times, we were not certain whether it was tornadic. Yes, that … [Read more...]
Pastel Arcus Arch
Somewhat rain-filtered bands of sunset light hit the turbulent underbelly of a shelf cloud, produced by the same pool of outflow as its photogenic northern reaches a few minutes before. The softly beautiful scene belied some danger overhead. This was taken out my vehicle's passenger-side window, thanks to a nearby lightning strike and the related need to get inside. Soon I would be shooting the … [Read more...]
Aroya Light
Some of the most evocative skyscapes on the Great Plains happen behind storms. This strange light came about in the form of two storm complexes—one following closely behind the other. The slate blue-gray veil in the distance was a large shield of rain and clouds from the first storms, which started as a training series of supercells that formed on and near a lee trough and the Raton Mesa, well … [Read more...]
Butte-Scraping Wall Cloud
Fascinating and complex processes unfolded in this scene, as a supercell's slowly rotating wall cloud passed over and beyond the butte just to the left of middle. The very low, perhaps "ground-scraping" right (eastern) part of the wall cloud, located just beyond the ridge, temporarily tightened its rotation a lot. However, it was too difficult to determine with certainty if a tornado spun up in … [Read more...]
Elevated Supercell Trying Hard
After forming over Raton Mesa in southern Colorado, and over 3 hours churning north-northeastward, a supercell with intense midlevel mesocyclone still was alive and forging over an increasingly deep pool of outflow air, with a deck of stratified low clouds overhead and surface temperatures in the upper 50s. The near-side cloud feature was an arcus cloud riding outflow from the rain-filled … [Read more...]
Milk River Rampage
A heavy-precipitation (HP) supercell just had been overtaken by the southern portion of a squall line, but retained its strong midlevel rotation, keeping it a line-embedded supercell fronted by an accelerating wall of wind and hail. The resulting storm rampaged southeastward down the Milk River Valley of northern Montana at highway speeds of 60 mph or more. Though even a brief stop would allow … [Read more...]
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