Fort Oglethorpe, GA Supercell? June 28, 2020

[Josh M]

Last year, I took several photographs of a storm that moved through Fort Oglethorpe, GA during the late evening hours on June 28, 2020. After looking back at the photographs recently, I realized that the storm in question looked rather supercellular in terms of structure. However, was this storm actually a supercell or was it just a strong multicellular storm?

 

[Mark Egan]

Looks rather outflowish to me. In the top pic, the arrows point to the direction of the wind: flowing “out” of the storm. In the second pic, the storm appears to be coming toward you, and the cloud structure seems to indicate the winds are “pushing” the clouds in front of the rain in your direction.

Further evidence? The SPC storm reports pages for 6/28/2020 and 6/29/2020 show only wind reports in the area, especially 6/29.

Storm Prediction Center 20200628's Storm Reports

Severe weather, tornado, thunderstorm, fire weather, storm report, tornado watch, severe thunderstorm watch, mesoscale discussion, convective outlook products from the Storm Prediction Center.

www.spc.noaa.gov

Storm Prediction Center 20200629's Storm Reports

Are you sure it wasn’t the 29th?

What structures are you seeing that make you think it looks supercellular?

I feel that I’m not seeing the whole storm, so there may be some context that I am missing.

I would not consider myself an expert, so I’m hoping someone with more experience will come behind me and confirm if what I’ve stated is correct

 

[James Gustina]

Just looking at its visual appearance and the radar loop for the given date, that very much looks like a multicell with outflow pushing ahead from the core. I don't have any velocity images available for that date but I don't really see anything that indicates a defined rotating updraft which would need to be present for it to be a supercell.

 

[Josh M]

Looks rather outflowish to me. In the top pic, the arrows point to the direction of the wind: flowing “out” of the storm. In the second pic, the storm appears to be coming toward you, and the cloud structure seems to indicate the winds are “pushing” the clouds in front of the rain in your direction.

Further evidence? The SPC storm reports pages for 6/28/2020 and 6/29/2020 show only wind reports in the area, especially 6/29.

Storm Prediction Center 20200628's Storm Reports

Severe weather, tornado, thunderstorm, fire weather, storm report, tornado watch, severe thunderstorm watch, mesoscale discussion, convective outlook products from the Storm Prediction Center.

www.spc.noaa.gov

Storm Prediction Center 20200629's Storm Reports

Are you sure it wasn’t the 29th?

What structures are you seeing that make you think it looks supercellular?

I feel that I’m not seeing the whole storm, so there may be some context that I am missing.

I would not consider myself an expert, so I’m hoping someone with more experience will come behind me and confirm if what I’ve stated is correct


View attachment 21217View attachment 21218

It was indeed on the 28th.

Looks rather outflowish to me. In the top pic, the arrows point to the direction of the wind: flowing “out” of the storm. In the second pic, the storm appears to be coming toward you, and the cloud structure seems to indicate the winds are “pushing” the clouds in front of the rain in your direction.

Further evidence? The SPC storm reports pages for 6/28/2020 and 6/29/2020 show only wind reports in the area, especially 6/29.

Storm Prediction Center 20200628's Storm Reports

Severe weather, tornado, thunderstorm, fire weather, storm report, tornado watch, severe thunderstorm watch, mesoscale discussion, convective outlook products from the Storm Prediction Center.

www.spc.noaa.gov

Storm Prediction Center 20200629's Storm Reports

Are you sure it wasn’t the 29th?

What structures are you seeing that make you think it looks supercellular?

I feel that I’m not seeing the whole storm, so there may be some context that I am missing.

I would not consider myself an expert, so I’m hoping someone with more experience will come behind me and confirm if what I’ve stated is correct


View attachment 21217View attachment 21218

For the supercellular characteristics I mentioned, I was going off of the storm’s appearance. In the fourth and fifth picture especially, the core of the storm seemed to take on a more circular shape. Along with this, it almost appears like the clouds in the same pictures are moving in a counter-clockwise direction. I’m probably just overanalyzing it though. The thought of the storm possibly being a supercell only crossed my mind recently after looking through old weather photos I took last year. After hearing your thoughts, it does seem more likely that this was just a multicell thunderstorm with an impressive structure.

 

[Malcolm M]

These are radar images from 8:30 local time on the 28th. Looks like no supercells, just a multicell cluster.