# Presentation: 089646

## Radar/Storm Interpretation

## Thunderstorm Spectrum

- Minimal
- Threat (?)

- Moderate
- Threat

- Moderate
- Threat

- High Threat
- Mesocyclone Present

## Severe Storm Generalities

- Evaluate the distribution of echoes on the radar display because certain organized patterns contain “hot spots” where the likelihood of severe storm development is the most favorable.  These areas include:
- 	- The cell at the southern end of a squall line
- 	- Large, intense, isolated echoes
- 	- Isolated cell ahead of a squall line
- 	- Cells in a broken squall line, especially those just north of a gap 	   in the line
- 	- Cells whose motion deviates from the mean storm motion,  	  “Right Movers”
- 	- Cells near a wave in a squall line (LEWP), if such a wave is a 	   reflection of an intense mesoscale pressure system

## Severe Storm Generalities

- The most severe, organized storms occur in environments where the shear and thermal instability are both moderate or strong and well balanced.

- Supercells seem to be the favored mode of convection when the low-level, storm relative winds are greater than 19 knots and veer by roughly 900 in the lowest 4 km.

## A Non-Severe Schematic

- Large CAPE and weak Shear produce a more upright thunderstorm.
- Precipitation loading in the updraft keeps this type of storm from reaching severe levels

## Severe Storm Generalities

- Les Lemon Technique - Severe Thundertorm Warning Criteria Guidelines

- Issue warning if:
- - 50 dbz return at 27kft AGL or higher
- Or if all of the following are satisfied:
- - Mid level (16-39kft AGL) return >45 dbz
-  Mid level overhang > 3.2 nmi beyond          the strong low level reflectivity gradient
- - Highest echo top located over the strong low level reflectivity gradient

- A leaning “tower”, due to shear in the environment, will carry precipitation away from the updraft of well-organized storms.  This diminishes the potential for significant water loading.

## Severe Storm Generalities

- Les Lemon Technique - Tornado Warning Criteria Guidelines

- Issue warning if:
- All of the follow three are satisfied:
- - Mid level (16-39kft AGL) return >45 dbz
- - Mid level overhang > 3.2 nmi beyond the    strong low level reflectivity gradient
- - Highest echo top located over the strong low level reflectivity gradient, or shifted farther towards the mid level overhang.
- And either or both of the following are present:
- - Low level pendant i.e. hook is oriented at right angles to the storm motion.  The pendent must lie beneath or bound the mid level overhang.
- - A BWER is detected.

## The Pulse Storm

- Rapid development and short lifespan make the Pulse Storm one of the hardest to warn for.  Lead time on warnings is generally the shortest with these storms.
- Main threat:

- * Brief period of hail.  Usually an inch or less.
- * Brief downburst winds.
- * Possible weak tornadoes/landspouts

## Pulse Storm Evolution

- Note the weaker, lower elevation development and shorter lifespan of the ordinary thunderstorm, compared to the Pulse Severe Storm.

## Slide 10

## Slide 11

## Slight lean to the tower keeps precipitation/ downdraft from interfering with the updraft.  This makes for a more efficient and potentially severe thunderstorm.

## Slide 13

## The dissipating stage of a Pulse Severe thunderstorm is the time when most severe weather occurs.

- The dissipating stage may lead to...

## Slide 15

## Slide 16

## Pulse Storms on Radar

- 0.50 Slice

- Composite
- Refectivity

- July 4, 1994 ~ 6:00 PM CDT
- Multiple wind/hail events.

- This can ruin a Radar Operator’s day...
- Multiple, isolated pulse storms require fast analysis and decision making by the radar operator.
- Use VIL to weed out weaker storms.

## Pulse Storm Example

**0.5****0**** beam height**

**Composite Reflectivity**

- Note the leaning tower, tops around 50kft and max DBZ around 20kft.
- This storm produced baseball size hail in Dodge County on 7/15/95

## Pulse Storm Example

**0.5****0**** beam height**

**Composite Reflectivity**

- Note the leaning tower, tops around 45kft and max DBZ around 25kft.
- This storm produced 2" hail in the city of Jefferson, Jefferson county, on 8/24/98

## A Pulse Storm to Remember

- July 5, 1994 at 4:03 PM
- An Isolated Thunderstorm develops south of Green Bay.

## Pulse Storm in Manitowoc County

- Structurally, this storm is not very impressive.

- July 5, 1994 at 4:48 PM.  Cooperstown F3 tornado on the ground from 4:43 - 4:55 PM! Let’s take a look at the velocity data.

## Pulse Storm in Manitowoc County

- 0.50 slice at 4:48 PM
- Range folding is obscuring data. Some hint of rotational couplet.  F3 on ground for 5 minutes already.

- 0.50 slice at 5:17 PM
- By now, tornado no longer on the ground.  Rotation more apparent, however.

## Pulse Storm in Manitowoc County

- Attribute table on Composite Reflectivity not showing anything very unusual with storm ID 87.

- 4 - Panel display shows the storm is essentially vertically stacked.

## Pulse Storm in Manitowoc County

- It was concluded that the Cooperstown Tornado spun up from the ground up.  As the isolated pulse storm hit the lake breeze boundary, the available horizontal vorticity was stretched vertically very quickly by the strong updraft of the storm.  This helped produce the 12 minute, 3.5 mile long, F3 tornado.
- Due to the rapid development, and tornado genesis occurring from the surface to cloud base, this type of tornado is extremely difficult to issue warnings with appreciable lead times.

- This tornado caused $2.1 million in damage and injured 2 people.

## The Multicell Cluster/Line

- - Multicell Clusters and Lines will often evolve from merging Pulse storms.  Or, in situations where an environmental cap is “broken”, Multicell Clusters develop almost immediately.
- - Quite often the Multicell Cluster will evolve into a Multicell Line or even a Supercell(s).
- - These systems are generally long-lived and if identified as severe, the warning decision process becomes somewhat straight forward.  This is especially true for large Multicell Lines producing widespread damaging winds.  May 31, 1998 comes to mind...

- Tornado and Severe storm Warning Criteria Guidelines are the same as for Pulse storms.  There are some additional factors to consider as well...

## A multicell sequence schematic

- Early stage

- Next evolution

- Later stage

## Multicell Line

- July 11, 1994    5:55 PM

## Multicell Line

## Multicell Line

- Max 66kt Inbound

- At this time, the Severe reports (wind) came from Sauk and Northern Columbia county (the Dells)

- Often, the older, collapsing storms will be the severe weather producers

## Multicell Line

- Intersecting outflow boundries

## Multicell Line - Wake Phenomenon

- What is this?

## Multicell Line - AP mitigation

- Anomolous Propogation in the wake of storms.  Cold outflow produces superrefractive conditions.

- Mitigate “wake AP” by raising elevation about 1 degree.

## Downburst Evolution

- Watch the head of the comma for quick tornado development.
- The tornadoes in these cases are generally weak and short- lived.

## Multicell Line

## Multicell Line

## Multicell Line

- Note: Leading cell now merging with bowing line

## Multicell Line

- Merger caused line to intensify rapidly.  It produced 70 mph winds in Milton...100 mph winds in Walworth county.

## Multicell Line

- Barn destroyed in Crawford county with 90 mph winds reported.

## Multicell Line

- Zero Isodop (winds perpendicular to radar beam) are causing displayed wind speeds to diminish to near zero along leading edge.

- Leading edge of storms

## Multicell Line

- We mitigate some Zero Isodop problems by calling surrounding 88Ds.  In this case, this is the bow as seen by the Chicago 88D.

## Multicell Lines - Rear Inflow Notches

- Although this figure shows 4 identified types of bow echo configurations, the consistent feature among the 4 is the channel of weak echo in the rear of the bow structure.
- This is often referred to as the Rear Inflow Notch.

## Multicell Line - Rear Inflow Notch

- June 8, 1995 at 00:48Z

## Multicell Line - Rear Inflow Notch

- June 8, 1995 at 00:53Z

## Multicell Line - Rear Inflow Notch

- June 8, 1995 at 00:58Z

## Multicell Line - Rear InFlow Notch

- June 8, 1995 at 01:03Z

## Multicell Line - Rear Inflow Notch

- June 8, 1995 at 01:13Z

- Wind damage event across Racine and Kenosha counties.  Winds were 70+ kts.

## Multicell Example

## Multicell Cross-Section

- June 6, 1995 ~ 4:48 PM

- Remember the Lemon Technique?
- Issue warning if:
- - 50 dbz return at 27kft AGL or higher
- Or if all of the following are satisfied
- - Mid level (16-39kft AGL) return >45 dbz
- - Mid level overhang > 3.2 nmi beyond the 	strong low level reflectivity gradient
- - Highest echo top located over the strong    	low level reflectivity gradient

- * Overhang about 3-4 nmi beyond LLV gradient

- * Highest echo top located beyond LLV 	reflectivity gradient

- What Happened?

## LEWP - Line Echo Wave Pattern

- LEWPs may be a reflection of an intense mesoscale pressure system developing

- Suspicious area to watch

## Multicell Line

- Intersecting outflow boundries

## LEWP Example from Michigan

## The Supercell

- Oakfield, WI   July 18, 1996    7:03PM

## Mesocyclone Recognition Criteria

- General Nomogram

- Rotational Velocity = Inbound + Outbound / 2

## Mesocyclone Recognition Criteria

## The Supercell

- Some persistent characteristics found from storm to storm:

- - An approximately circular to elliptic horizontal cross section aloft with a typical dimension of 11 to 22 nmi and a vertical extent of 40 to 60kft.
- - At low levels, the echo is situated mainly on the storm’s left flank and may exhibit a hook-shaped appendage that is located generally in the region of the rear flank downdraft.
- - A persistent BWER found on the right flank.  An RHI (cross-section) parallel to the inflow region will show  this BWER the best.
- - Will likely have a persistent meso-cyclone circulation.  These will be hard to detect if the storm is LP or the circulation is too small (far away) for the radar to resolve.

## Severe Storm Generalities

- Les Lemon Technique - Tornado Warning 	Criteria Guidelines

- Issue warning if:
- All of the follow three are satisfied:
- - Mid level (16-39kft AGL) return >45 dbz
- - Mid level overhang > 3.2 nmi beyond the
-   strong low level reflectivity gradient
- - Highest echo top located over the strong low
-   level reflectivity gradient, or shifted farther
-   towards the mid level overhang.
- And either or both of the following are present:
- - Low level pendant i.e. hook is oriented at right angles to the storm motion.  The pendent must lie beneath or bound the mid level overhang.
- - A BWER is detected.

## Dane County Supercell

- Tornado reported around 0040z northeast of MSN.

- July 25, 1997

## Dane County Supercell

**0005z**

**0005z**

## Dane County Supercell

## Supercell - The V Notch

- A good indicator of Intensity/dynamics

- Theory explains this as the mid/upper level winds encounter storm core and are diverted around it’s mass.

## Supercell - The Hook/Flanking Line

- Tornadoes in Michigan

## Supercell in Minnesota

- March 29, 1998.  13 tornadoes this day... beginning around 3:00 PM and continuing into the early evening.

- The Environment...

## Minnesota Supercell Environment

- Valid March 29, 1998, 18z

- Upper Level
- 250mb Isotachs (m/s) and Divergence

## Minnesota Supercell Environment

- Wood Lake, MN profiler showing significant shear in the lowest 3-6 km.

- Remember...
- Supercells seem to be the favored mode of convection when the low-level, storm relative winds are greater than 19 knots and veer by roughly 900 in the lowest 4 km.

## Minnesota Supercell Environment

- Visible image and Surface Streamlines at 3:45 PM

## Minnesota Supercell Environment

- Surface Dewpoints (0F)

## Minnesota Supercell Environment

- Surface Temps (0F)

## Supercell in Minnesota

- March 29, 1998.  13 tornadoes this day... beginning around 3:00 PM and continuing into the early evening.

## The Oakfield Tornado

- Reflectivity        2328Z

## The Oakfield Tornado

- Reflectivity        0003Z

- Pendent, or hook echo, on right rear flank.

## The Oakfield Tornado

- Storm Relative Velocity         2328Z

## The Oakfield Tornado

- Storm Relative Velocity         0003Z

- Classic rotational couplet.  Green is inbound and red outbound...relative to the radar which is south of the image

## The Oakfield Tornado

- 4-panel display showing overhang and BWER at 23:57z

## The Oakfield Tornado

- Oakfield F5 tornado.  July 18, 1996.
- On the ground from 7:05 PM - 7:35 PM
- No deaths
- 12 injuries
- $39.5 Million in damage

## End of Part II