Bangladesh and Eastern India storm season

[Michael Thomas]

I thought I might share some radar images I have saved from the Bangladesh and Eastern India storm season. As many here are aware, this area is no stranger to high/extreme CAPE. During April, and to a lesser extent May, mid-level winds across Bangladesh and adjacent parts of India are typically around 20-50 knots providing sufficient vertical shear for supercells.

Edit: Attached images are quite compressed so here they are again-

And from yesterday-

 

[John Peters]

Mike,
very interesting radar images - it's weird seeing storm structure like that so far away from the US! Does radar site have doppler capabilities? Also, how frequently does this region see long-tracked tornadoes?

- John

 

[ZCurry]

Fairly frequently, this is the only area that seasonally gets violent tornadoes. Single tornadoes in this area have been known to kill hundreds or even thousands of people. In fact, the deadliest tornado in world history occurred in Bangladesh in the 80's. They are not well studied but some Bangladesh tornadoes have produced damage indicative of EF4 or EF5 winds. East India and Bangladesh is probably the only place in the world that is comparable Tornado Alley USA. This site has a good bit of info.
http://www.bangladeshtornadoes.org/

 

[Michael Thomas]

Mike,
very interesting radar images - it's weird seeing storm structure like that so far away from the US! Does radar site have doppler capabilities? Also, how frequently does this region see long-tracked tornadoes?

- John

Yes, that radar does have doppler capabilities, see here (Agartala radar site)-
http://www.imd.gov.in/section/dwr/dynamic/dwr.htm

This region experiences a large number of severe storms in spring. From searching news articles, it is clear that there have been a large number of storm-related fatalities this year. Probably the most major incident was when a boat capsized during a storm in Assan (India)-

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India...nks-boat-100-feared-dead/Article1-848587.aspx

Other fatalities have been reported from lightning and building collapses. I am also aware of one tornado report in eastern India this year-
http://www.imd.gov.in/doc/agartala_08_05_2012.pdf

 

[Dan Robinson]

Bangladesh's tornado climatology has been known for a long time, so do you ever wonder why no one goes there to chase? I mean other than the fact that their season roughly parallels ours.

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1011.html

 

[Michael Thomas]

It seems that the storms are not the only things to worry about over there Dan.

Here is a 12Z sounding from the 26th of April, 2012 at Kolkata-

Radar image-

I suspect that the low-level moisture shown in the sounding above may not be accurate since the 2 pm observations from Kolkata had a dew point of around 26-27 C with a temperature of ~34-36 C. I also see no reason why the dew point should spike to 28.7 C at ~24 m AGL (correct me if I am wrong - it may well be accurate). The sounding is certainly representative of an extreme CAPE environment regardless of the specifics.

 

[Zach Young]

Geez, the tropopause is so high it doesn't even show up on the sounding...