07/01/04 NOW: Southern Plains, Northeast and Midwest

[Larry J. Kosch]

Starting a NOW thread since we have a SWW for TX-OK panhandles and a couple of SWWs for the Northeast (NY, RI and Vermont). Also we are getting widespread rainshowers across NE and KS. There is a number of storms firing up in SD. There's stuff breaking out all over. Take your pick and put your storm discussions here. Thanks. 8)

P. S. Will put up a NOW thread for Canada if we hear from anybody up there tracking some storms.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

The supercell southwest of CDS looks pretty impressive. VILs have increased to near 80 now as a pretty strong mesocyclone looks to be holding its own... While tilt1 reflectivities aren't anything to get tooo excited about, the high reflectivies continue HIGH into the storm (tilts 3-4), indicative of a very strong core aloft (contributing to VIL). In fact, the highest reflectivities are on Tilt 4 (3.5degrees) -- 66dbz... Visible satellite shows a nice overshooting top from time to time.

New scan now showing pretty strong rotation in the lowest tilt... with the supercell being near a boundary, I wouldn't be too surprised to see a tornado warning out on this cell pretty soon. LCLs remain kind of high, but should continue to lower as insolation decreases with the waning sun.... Dry air above the surface will likely tend to make these storms outflow dominant, especially considering the weak shear, however...

Winds continue to back east of the storm, per the FDR VAD which has shown backing/backed winds in the lowest 3km for the past couple of hours. Too bad there isn't a profiler in that area...

There is another storm north of this supercell trying to develop... It's been flirting with mainly 40 dbz, but the depth of the high reflectivities has been inconsistent greatly. CAPEs in this area remain in the 3000-4000 range per RUC analysis / SPC mesoanalysis... Though absolute wind speeds and 850mb winds remain rather weak, storms have a chance for a brief tornado should they be able to translate eastward fast enough to ingest the higher-helicity air farther east...

 

[David Drummond]

Went after the first storm SW of Childress until it started not looking so great and the one to the north started showing overshooting tops and backsheared anvil. Ran into Jay McCoy and partner north of Childress while some random golf balls were busting on the pavement. That storm died/backbuilt back to the west so repositioned and got some great video of even more golf balls exploding on the pavement and messed with that til it got back to Childress.

Did see a couple of decent wall clouds and some nice rotation nearly overhead on the mess that was NW of Childress but it was brief and not to well organized. Nice RFD though in that area produced a pretty good dust storm.

Stopped to take a pick of the nice orange lit supercell to the south by the sunset and saw Roger Hill's group headed off that way. We are in Childress now and giving it up as it's getting dark and that cell further south is racing away!

Hmmm not sure if that was a report or a now, but still in the field here so will call it a NOW. :lol:

 

[Melissa Moon]

Lone cell in West-central Oklahoma. Hopefully it will make it a little farther east, so that those of us in the metro area can get some lightning shots.