page_title: Supercell
section_title: Low Precipitation (LP)
hierarchical_section_title: Supercell / Supercell variations / Low Precipitation (LP)
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Orage supercelluaire à faible précipitations. La base des nuages est très élevée et le taux de précipitation vu au radar, dans le nuage et sous celui-ci, est peu élevé et il est souvent difficile d'y voir une rotation. Toutefois, il peut se produire une chute de gros grêlons qui engendrent peu d'échos radar. La colonne de pluie est séparée de la zone en rotation et de celle de grêle. Ces cellules orageuses peuvent donner tous les éléments violents mentionnés antérieurement mais le plus probable est la grêle. English: In LP supercells the updraft is on the rear flank of the storm, a barber pole or corkscrew appearance of updraft is possible, precipitation sparse or well removed from the updraft, often is transparent and you can"t see it, and large hail is often difficult to discern visually. Also, there is no "hook" seen on Doppler radar.
context_page_description: A supercell is a thunderstorm characterized by the presence of a mesocyclone: a deep, persistently rotating updraft. For this reason, these storms are sometimes referred to as rotating thunderstorms. Of the four classifications of thunderstorms, supercells are the overall least common and have the potential to be the most severe. Supercells are often isolated from other thunderstorms, and can dominate the local weather up to 32 kilometres away. They tend to last 2–4 hours.
  Supercells are often put into three classification types: classic, low-precipitation, and high-precipitation. LP supercells are usually found in climates that are more arid, such as the high plains of the United States, and HP supercells are most often found in moist climates. Supercells can occur anywhere in the world under the right pre-existing weather conditions, but they are most common in the Great Plains of the United States in an area known as Tornado Alley and in the Tornado Corridor of Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil.
context_section_description: LP supercells contain a small and relatively light precipitation (rain/hail) core that is well separated from the updraft. The updraft is intense, and LPs are inflow dominant storms. The updraft tower is typically more strongly tilted and the deviant rightward motion less than for other supercell types. The forward flank downdraft (FFD) is noticeably weaker than for other supercell types, and the rear-flank downdraft (RFD) is much weaker—even visually absent in many cases. Like classic supercells, LP supercells tend to form within stronger mid-to-upper level storm-relative wind shear; however, the atmospheric environment leading to their formation is not well understood. The moisture profile of the atmosphere, particularly the depth of the elevated dry layer, also appears to be important, and the low-to-mid level shear may also be important.
  This type of supercell may be easily identifiable with "sculpted" cloud striations in the updraft base or even a "corkscrewed" or "barber pole" appearance on the updraft, and sometimes an almost "anorexic" look compared to classic supercells. This is because they often form within drier moisture profiles (often initiated by dry lines) leaving LPs with little available moisture despite high mid-to-upper level environmental winds. They most often dissipate rather than turning into classic or HP supercells, although it is still not unusual for LPs to do the latter, especially when moving into a much moister air mass. LPs were first formally described by Howard Bluestein in the early 1980s although storm-chasing scientists noticed them throughout the 1970s. Classic supercells may wither yet maintain updraft rotation as they decay, becoming more like the LP type in a process known as "downscale transition" that also applies to LP storms, and this process is thought to be how many LPs dissipate.
  LP supercells rarely spawn tornadoes, and those that form tend to be weak, small, and high-based tornadoes, but strong tornadoes have been observed. These storms, although generating lesser precipitation amounts and producing smaller precipitation cores, can generate huge hail. LPs may produce hail larger than baseballs in clear air where no rainfall is visible. LPs are thus hazardous to people and animals caught outside as well as to storm chasers and spotters. Due to the lack of a heavy precipitation core, LP supercells often exhibit relatively weak radar reflectivity without clear evidence of a hook echo, when in fact they are producing a tornado at the time. LP supercells may not even be recognized as supercells in reflectivity data unless one is trained or experienced on their radar characteristics. This is where observations by storm spotter and storm chasers may be of vital importance in addition to Doppler velocity (and polarimetric) radar data. High-based shear funnel clouds sometimes form midway between the base and the top of the storm, descending from the main Cb (cumulonimbus) cloud. Lightning discharges may be less frequent compared to other supercell types, but on occasion LPs are prolific sparkers, and the discharges are more likely to occur as intracloud lightning rather than cloud-to-ground lightning.
  In North America these storms most prominently form in the semi-arid Great Plains during the spring and summer months. Moving east and southeast, they often collide with moist air masses from the Gulf of Mexico, leading to the formation of HP supercells in areas just to the west of Interstate 35 before dissipating (or coalescing into squall lines) at variable distances farther east. LP supercells have been observed as far east as Illinois and Indiana, however. LP supercells can occur as far north as Montana, North Dakota, and even in the Prairie Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba in Canada. They have also been observed by storm chasers in Australia and Argentina (the Pampas).
  LP supercells are quite sought after by storm chasers because the limited amount of precipitation makes sighting tornadoes at a safe distance much less difficult than with a classic or HP supercell
caption: Idealized view of an LP supercell
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