06/03/2007 NOW: NM/TX

[Jason Persoff]

Storm now in Winkler Cty TX intensified rapidly when interacting with the SW-moving OFB traveling out of MAF. But it immediately undercut the updraft on radar and I am worried it will rapidly collapse in the current environment. Elsewhere there are storms doing the same song and dance (crossing OFBs) without any able to ride along the OFB leading to rapid undercutting of the cells (here I'm speaking of those west of LBB), though the Bailey Cty storm is making a go of building along it. Tough chase day indeed.

 

[rdale]

VERY strange system here... According to NWS San Antonio, this "line" of "reported severe thunderstorms" is capable of producing 70 mph gusts... Closest lightning is 50 miles away, tops are around 5000ft and max dbZ of around 25. I don't get it at all?!?

http://skywatch.org/ewx.png

 

[rdale]

I'm missing something... NWS meteorologists still say that line of 15-20dbZ from an outflow boundary is a line of severe storms with 70mph winds reported. Not sure I agree at all. There is nice rotation now for a few scans near Flatonia (due east of EWX) so they issued a TOR but for the county north of the rotation.

http://skywatch.org/ewx2.png

 

[Dan Robinson]

I've seen this occur before. When the gust front outruns the storms by a county or more, warnings may get issued for the gust front itself rather than the actual storm. I've chased some mean gust fronts that got well ahead of the dying convection (20-30 miles or more east). While it's a long shot that there could be 70mph gusts that far away from the outflow source, at least from what I've seen, these long-distance outflows can kick up dust storms and throw lightweight objects around. They catch people off-guard because the storm sometimes isn't even apparent in the upstream sky when the gust front hits. Many times the shelf cloud has long since evaporated.

http://stormhighway.com/august192006.shtml