3/21/05 NOW: TX, OK, AR, LA, MS

[Mike Peregrine]

For what it's worth, while the storm looked very poor on radar, the visual appearance of the storm was quite impressive, albeit highly tilted.

From the various descriptions, it sounds like these storms had a lot of mini supercell characteristics. Were you able to see an anvil? - What was lightning like on these cells? Tilted updrafts and unimpressive radar signatures make these sound A LOT like mini supes to me.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

For what it's worth, while the storm looked very poor on radar, the visual appearance of the storm was quite impressive, albeit highly tilted.

From the various descriptions, it sounds like these storms had a lot of mini supercell characteristics. Were you able to see an anvil? - What was lightning like on these cells? Tilted updrafts and unimpressive radar signatures make these sound A LOT like mini supes to me.

Mike, the storms looked much better in person than they did on the radar. Lightning was very sparse, likely because charge seperation was ineffiecent. The storm certainly looked mini-supercellular for most of its lifetime. The storm was leaned over so much that it was difficult to really see the vertical depth of the storm. Anvils were present occassionally when an 'updraft bomb' made its way up. Imagine a steam engine puffing along... The top of the updraft was glaciated for most of the time, and there was an anvil for about the last 2/3rds of its lifetime. Structure-wise, it looked similar to the 10-29 supercell in eastern OK that I chased. There was definate evidence of the incredible shear in the environment, however. When the storm finally got it's act together shortly near Paris, horizontal and vertical motion at cloud base (and the beaver tail and inflow bands) were very impressive!