5/14/07 DISC: KS / CO / NE / IA /WI

[Bill Hark]

I was amazed to see tornado reports from KS and CO. I had looked at the parameters earlier today and didn't see anything worthwhile. The 500 MB winds were low. I dodn't see any low level jet or even decent backed surface winds in CO (They may have been backed in KS). There was some upper level divergence at 250MB level for NW KS. Over all, very poor conditions for tornadic development yet there were several reports of tornadoes. I would have never considered chasing those areas. Any thoughts on what combination of conditions supported tornadic storms?

Bill Hark

 

[David Wolfson]

The area of the slow-moving surface front seemed highly sheared, with brisk north and northeast winds behind, and equally brisk south and southwest winds ahead. Throw in a decent updraft and landspouts were certainly not out of the question. Dunno about the Colorado tornado reports. The experts may have a better answer, but that's what I saw.

 

[Stan Rose]

As David points out, it was the good low level shear provided by the boundary, together with dews around 50 degrees over the plains. I had suspected a few brief tornadoes, though i figured they would be over the terrain to the north, where mid level flow was also better. The tornado reports in my area are not definite, but based on the environment i think a brief spinup or landspout was feasible. The storms further to the north were a little better organized, with actual couplets on radar. But it was not a bad scenario overall, and we also got golf-ball hail reports as well.

 

[Tony Laubach]

I'm looking back at my video from Prospect Valley where the first tornado was reported yesterday. I think I was shooting the interesting part of the storm at the time of the report and may have seen it. I said something while shooting in regards to what I was looking at, but was quickly distracted by the buckets of quarter to golfball sized hail which accumulated over 6 inches deep.

I think this will go down as one of the craziest severe weather days for Denver and surrounding areas. There was insane street flooding all over Denver due to heavy rains in a very short period of time and the hail which clogged drains. I have a lot of imagery to go through, so it may take a couple of days before I get things up, but what a fun fun day it was..

A few stories from KMGH Channel 7 here in Denver...

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/weather/13317905/detail.html

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/slideshow/weather/13320302/detail.html

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/13319874/detail.html