Supercell thunderstorms

Observations of Mergers between Squall Lines and Isolated Supercell Thunderstorms

A set of 21 cases in which an isolated supercell merged with a squall line were identified and investigated using analyses from the Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) model, archived data from the Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) network, and severe storm reports. This analysis revealed two primary environments associated with these mergers: a weak synoptic forcing, weak to moderate shea...

Wintertime Supercell Thunderstorms in a Subtropical Environment: Numerical Simulation

Following an earlier diagnostic study, the present paper performs numerical simulations of the rare wintertime supercell storms during 19–20 December 2002 in a subtropical environment near Taiwan. Using Japan Meteorology Agency (JMA) 20-km analyses and horizontal grid spacing of 1.5 and 0.5 km, the CloudResolving Storm Simulator (CReSS) of Nagoya University successfully reproduced the three maj...

Effects of microphysical drop size distribution on tornadogenesis in supercell thunderstorms

[1] Idealized simulations of tornadogenesis in supercell storms are performed using a grid of 100 m spacing. The cold pool intensity and low-level storm dynamics are found to be very sensitive to the intercept parameters of rain and hail drop size distributions (DSD). DSDs favoring smaller (larger) hydrometeors result in stronger (weaker) cold pools due to enhanced (reduced) evaporative cooling...

A comparison of the midlevel kinematic characteristics of a pair of supercell thunderstorms observed by airborne Doppler radar

The midlevel kinematic characteristics of two supercell thunderstorms observed during the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment (VORTEX), one tornadic and the other nontornadic, are compared using airborne pseudo-dualDoppler wind retrievals. The most significant difference between the two cases was that a midlevel rear-inflow jet was observed in the nontornadic superce...

Controls of Updraft Size, Cold Pool Characteristics, and Potential Tornado Intensity in Supercell Thunderstorms by Geoffrey R. Marion