Darren Addy
EF5
I was reviewing a NOAA powerpoint on tornado forecasting basics when I came upon a piece of information that I wasn't previously aware of:
Anvil Shadow-Generated Baroclinity.
I searched the ST forum and found an archived thread where it was discussed: http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=4971&highlight=anvil+shadow
I just wanted to resurrect this topic for anyone interested in discussing it in light of what we know today. First of all, I was able to find that the PDF version of Paul Markowski's (et al) article is available here so no one has an excuse for not being able to read it.
It seems reasonable to me that any anvil shadow effect would be dependent upon the storm vector and speed, as well as the orientation of the sun (both time-of-day and time-of-year).
I'm curious about how this anvil-shadow baroclinity might be affected by or enhance the effect of a pre-existing outflow boundary. The paper explicitly does not discuss its relation to tornadogenesis (beyond the scope) but it seems reasonable to me that this could be one additional reason that tail-end Charlies produce. In a line of supercells, a long area of cooling shadows would be cast to the east, but the "demarcation" line of heated/sunlit ground and shadow ground would only be found on the southern-most storm.
I guess this is interesting to me because I had never considered the effect of the anvil shadow before and I'm wondering if this is still an area of current future research? I'm guessing that this may be part of what the Vortex2 mobile mesonets will be gathering data on.
Anvil Shadow-Generated Baroclinity.
I searched the ST forum and found an archived thread where it was discussed: http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=4971&highlight=anvil+shadow
I just wanted to resurrect this topic for anyone interested in discussing it in light of what we know today. First of all, I was able to find that the PDF version of Paul Markowski's (et al) article is available here so no one has an excuse for not being able to read it.
It seems reasonable to me that any anvil shadow effect would be dependent upon the storm vector and speed, as well as the orientation of the sun (both time-of-day and time-of-year).
I'm curious about how this anvil-shadow baroclinity might be affected by or enhance the effect of a pre-existing outflow boundary. The paper explicitly does not discuss its relation to tornadogenesis (beyond the scope) but it seems reasonable to me that this could be one additional reason that tail-end Charlies produce. In a line of supercells, a long area of cooling shadows would be cast to the east, but the "demarcation" line of heated/sunlit ground and shadow ground would only be found on the southern-most storm.
I guess this is interesting to me because I had never considered the effect of the anvil shadow before and I'm wondering if this is still an area of current future research? I'm guessing that this may be part of what the Vortex2 mobile mesonets will be gathering data on.
Last edited by a moderator:
