Dan Robinson
EF5
A warm front draped northwest to southest through the heart of the St. Louis metro area, strong instability and an upper-level jet made Monday a potentially big chase day for the region. I started with this weak storm at Red Bud that, despite looking paltry on radar, still maintained a respectable updraft base with strong rising motion, RFD clear slot and partial wall cloud:
This storm had all the looks of producing if it could just gain a few notches in intensity, which I expected could happen once the low level jet started picking up near sunset. However, I noted a second storm firing in the St. Louis city limits that would be threatening downtown - so despite the good look of the Red Bud storm, I rushed to get back into the city so as to not miss something potentially photogenic over the skyline.
After fighting rush-hour traffic gridlock, I arrived at the updraft of the St. Louis storm at I-64 and I-170 at Brentwood. Strong descending motion indicated a solid RFD trying to cut in, but the updraft itself was struggling. Furthermore, a new storm at Arnold was cutting off its low-level inflow. This was the view at Big Bend and Manchester:
I went downtown to see if the sun could peek through for a rainbow or other sunset colors, which didn't happen. I returned home, then ventured back out at 10pm for lightning with the departing cluster of storms to the east.
A couple more images are on my blog:
http://stormhighway.com/blog2018/june2518a.php
This storm had all the looks of producing if it could just gain a few notches in intensity, which I expected could happen once the low level jet started picking up near sunset. However, I noted a second storm firing in the St. Louis city limits that would be threatening downtown - so despite the good look of the Red Bud storm, I rushed to get back into the city so as to not miss something potentially photogenic over the skyline.
After fighting rush-hour traffic gridlock, I arrived at the updraft of the St. Louis storm at I-64 and I-170 at Brentwood. Strong descending motion indicated a solid RFD trying to cut in, but the updraft itself was struggling. Furthermore, a new storm at Arnold was cutting off its low-level inflow. This was the view at Big Bend and Manchester:
I went downtown to see if the sun could peek through for a rainbow or other sunset colors, which didn't happen. I returned home, then ventured back out at 10pm for lightning with the departing cluster of storms to the east.
A couple more images are on my blog:
http://stormhighway.com/blog2018/june2518a.php
