Stephen Levine
EF4
With a dryline progged to move through the Dallas metro area by late morning, yet still hanging back between Dallas and Mineral Wells, TX, and a cold front behind that, my intuition told me to drive a bit to our NE to the Sulphur Springs area, about 60 miles away to pursue the arisal of possible pre-frontal supercells.
So at 11:30 am, I took off and arrived in Sulphur Springs by 1:15 pm. Shortly after I arrived the entire area was put under a tornado watch by the NWS.
Not having the budget or time, taking a trip to AR was out of the question, However, I felt that there might be a sporting chance of seeing a good supercell or two in E.TX just the same.
Of note was the intense sheer at mid and upper levels, and what it did to the building clouds. Intensely cauliflowery towers would rise up, then meet the sheer and flatten. As a result, the anvil tops would form at an almost horizontal angle to the cauliflowery base, with very little vertical ascent.
I hoped that the intensification of daytime heating would perhaps allow a tower to overcome the effect of the extreme sheer.
My hopes began to build with the clouds by 2:30 pm. One could see the towers exploding upwards, tops turning over themselves like lotus flowers unfolding within the isolated cloud streets. However, within minutes, dense mists of snow aloft would intermingle with the still-building tops, and soon those tops would flatten out, producing no more than a moderate shower.
My eyes turned to the West as I realized that regardless of any factor, these clouds would not overcome the wind sheer.
A squall line developed over the Eastern Dallas Metro area and quickly went strong to "severe", and approached my area.
I drove west by about 10 miles from my position to meet it. The storms struck with a spectacular show of whiteout rains, winds gusting to 60 MPH that gently rocked and shook my car, hail with a few stones to nickel sized, but mostly pea sized, and occasional C-G lightning.
As the line approached, I noted a slowly rotating lowering/wall cloud structure that was saucer -shaped out ahead of the main rain shield, and I thought of S.T. discussions of brief tornadic spin ups within bowing echoes.
Wind damage was reported in Sulphur Springs not far from my locale, but I believe that it was straight line.
Definitely worth a day off work, and in addition to the nice kickbutt storm, it was an education seeing the effects of intense sheer on storm generation or the lack of it.
So at 11:30 am, I took off and arrived in Sulphur Springs by 1:15 pm. Shortly after I arrived the entire area was put under a tornado watch by the NWS.
Not having the budget or time, taking a trip to AR was out of the question, However, I felt that there might be a sporting chance of seeing a good supercell or two in E.TX just the same.
Of note was the intense sheer at mid and upper levels, and what it did to the building clouds. Intensely cauliflowery towers would rise up, then meet the sheer and flatten. As a result, the anvil tops would form at an almost horizontal angle to the cauliflowery base, with very little vertical ascent.
I hoped that the intensification of daytime heating would perhaps allow a tower to overcome the effect of the extreme sheer.
My hopes began to build with the clouds by 2:30 pm. One could see the towers exploding upwards, tops turning over themselves like lotus flowers unfolding within the isolated cloud streets. However, within minutes, dense mists of snow aloft would intermingle with the still-building tops, and soon those tops would flatten out, producing no more than a moderate shower.
My eyes turned to the West as I realized that regardless of any factor, these clouds would not overcome the wind sheer.
A squall line developed over the Eastern Dallas Metro area and quickly went strong to "severe", and approached my area.
I drove west by about 10 miles from my position to meet it. The storms struck with a spectacular show of whiteout rains, winds gusting to 60 MPH that gently rocked and shook my car, hail with a few stones to nickel sized, but mostly pea sized, and occasional C-G lightning.
As the line approached, I noted a slowly rotating lowering/wall cloud structure that was saucer -shaped out ahead of the main rain shield, and I thought of S.T. discussions of brief tornadic spin ups within bowing echoes.
Wind damage was reported in Sulphur Springs not far from my locale, but I believe that it was straight line.
Definitely worth a day off work, and in addition to the nice kickbutt storm, it was an education seeing the effects of intense sheer on storm generation or the lack of it.
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