Cold-Core Chase?

[Melanie Kern-Favilla]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post here at Stormtrack, and I am truly honored to be a member.

I was reading the nowcasting thread, and Mikey Gribble talked about a cold-core chase. Can someone please give me a little more information on what constitutes a cold-core chase?

You can see the post that I am referring to here:

http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?p=173797#post173797

Thank you for your help...

Melanie

 

[Chris Bowman]

http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/81563.pdf

This is very good review of cold core upper low systems and favored areas for tornadoes.

 

[Mikey Gribble]

Here is another really good article. There is one more on his main page also.
http://members.cox.net/jondavies6/102606swks/102606swks.htm

I am the worst person to comment on this, but I'll give it a shot. You get cold core tornadoes some times when you have a closed mid-level low. The system I was refering to in the post you mentioned should be an open wave on Thursday so it won't be a cold core setup. Before it looked like it may close off by Thursday. Now it closes off on Friday according the NAM (I stopped looking at this setup so the NAM is all I checked). Anyways, there are very cold temperatures in the center of the mid-level low. With most cold core setups you wouldn't think the environment would be supportive of tornadoes, but it happens. Typically cold core tornadoes are near the surface low and under those colder temperatures around the mid-level low. There are certain conditions that usually favor cold core tornadoes and Davies gives an overview of that in his paper. Cold temperatures aloft and a nearly stacked system are two of the conditions that are commonly associated with them. From what I understand cold core tornadoes have more to do with steep lapse rates and vortex stretching than they do with environmental shear (like typical tornadoes). Jeff Snyder could probably explain this to you. I know very little about it so you should probably ignore what I said.

 

[Melanie Kern-Favilla]

Jeff Snyder could probably explain this to you. I know very little about it so you should probably ignore what I said.

Lol, Mike. I think you explained it very well. Thanks to everyone for their help. The information provided has definitely helped me better understand cold-core storms. Thank you again...

Melanie

 

[Mikey Gribble]

Honestly I could be wrong about some things and I know I'm leaving some things out. Jeff is a really smart guy and I remember him commenting on landspouts and cold core tornadoes before so he definitely knows the finer details on this kind of stuff.