Can you help me identify this structure?...

[Ben_Jacobi]

I was out chasing today near Bellvue, TX. I came across this interesting structure. I assumed it was a roll cloud, but after I spend a few minutes watching it I notice it was rotating. I took a quick look at the radar (attached the image) and the velocity did reveal a small area of weak rotation. I am pointing the camera to the SW. My question is do you think this is scud?, decaying shelf cloud?, roll cloud? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

-Ben

 

[Jason Boggs]

If it was completely detached from other cloud elements, it's a roll cloud. Otherwise, it may be a shelf cloud. Was it rotating horizontally? If it was, it's most likely a roll cloud.

 

[Ben_Jacobi]

If it was completely detached from other cloud elements, it's a roll cloud. Otherwise, it may be a shelf cloud. Was it rotating horizontally? If it was, it's most likely a roll cloud.

Thanks Jason for the reply. It actually was not rotating horizontally. That is what confused me.

 

[jeremy wilson]

What's up Ben?

I was on the same storm myself as I decided to take a lazy Sunday drive and noticed the storm on radar. It did indeed have a small couplet at this point in it's life and shortly before this had a brief but rapidly rotating funnel underneath a pronounced lowering. I actualy was very shocked at its supercellular structure and thought it may produce.

This storm was going up on a decaying MCV from the night before and had latched ahold of an outflow boundry produced by earlier convection. I was practicaly right under the feature in your photo and it was at this point that it decided to collapse. Winds became very strong in the 60-70 MPH range as the storm was dying and as Jason said this was a roll cloud produced by the storm going outflow.

But you were correct in your assumption that this was a rotating supercell with a pretty intense meso for a bit.









i

 

[Ben_Jacobi]

What's up Ben?

I was on the same storm myself as I decided to take a lazy Sunday drive and noticed the storm on radar. It did indeed have a small couplet at this point in it's life and shortly before this had a brief but rapidly rotating funnel underneath a pronounced lowering. I actualy was very shocked at its supercellular structure and thought it may produce.

This storm was going up on a decaying MCV from the night before and had latched ahold of an outflow boundry produced by earlier convection. I was practicaly right under the feature in your photo and it was at this point that it decided to collapse. Winds became very strong in the 60-70 MPH range as the storm was dying and as Jason said this was a roll cloud produced by the storm going outflow.

But you were correct in your assumption that this was a rotating supercell with a pretty intense meso for a bit.









i

Thanks for the response Jeremy. Glad you got to go out chasing on Sunday. I was surprised by the radar and velocity scans as well. Thanks for the help.

 

[Chance Metz]

Looks like a roll cloud to me. Could be scud too but that is not likely.