Hurricane In Kansas??

[Larry J. Kosch]

Did anybody see the amazing photo that GOES-12 VIS SAT was showing this morning (07/16/04)?? There was a low pressure system sitting in the Sunflower State with clouds in spiraling bands. That system held together for most of the morning until it tore itself apart and left half of the cloud system sitting in the bottom half of the state.

http://www.geocities.com/ljkosch55/GOES_12...nsas_Low_02.jpg
(Photo Courtesy of Colorado State University)

Here's a link to a couple of GOES-12 photos on my website, Storm Chasing in SE Nebraska:

http://www.geocities.com/ljkosch55/Best_St...age_2_2004.html

I will try to get the website updated in the next couple of weeks as soon as I can get some more storm photos ready. Hey thanks to StormTrack viewers like you, my web count has gone over 340 hits for the past month. Thanks!!

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[Jeff Snyder]

Haven't look at it much yet, but looks like an MCV -- a mesoscale convective vortex. These are spawned, typically, by well-organized convective complexes... Mike G can post some good links I'm sure regarding MCVs... Note that many of the surrounding NWSFOs mention the MCVs in their area forecast discussions (e.g. OUN, ICT, TUL/TSA, etc)

 

[Robert Dewey]

Haven't look at it much yet, but looks like an MCV -- a mesoscale convective vortex. These are spawned, typically, by well-organized convective complexes... Mike G can post some good links I'm sure regarding MCVs... Note that many of the surrounding NWSFOs mention the MCVs in their area forecast discussions (e.g. OUN, ICT, TUL/TSA, etc)

I was gonna say MCV earlier, but I wasn't sure if there was convective activity in that region prior (didn't wanna sound like an idiot)...

 

[Jim Southard]

I didn't see a loop from this morning, but it looks like the cirrus debris is curved anticyclonically. MCS's/MCC's will produce upper level anticyclones over them, somewhat similar to how tropical systems will have anticyclonic outflow at high levels.

That's a great image though! It truly does resemble a tropical system, IMHO... except that it's over Kansas and not 26C ocean waters...

Jim

 

[Michael P. Morris]

I remember one of those last summer, I think around mid-May. Put out some good wall clouds here in Edmond IIRC.

 

[Richard Halter]

I believe that a tropical system starts out as a Mesoscale convective complex, it seems to me that there is very little difference, except that there just isn't any water to sustain the thing. For a little bit, you have a tropical - type low in the wheat fields.

 

[Robert Dewey]

I believe that a tropical system starts out as a Mesoscale convective complex, it seems to me that there is very little difference, except that there just isn't any water to sustain the thing. For a little bit, you have a tropical - type low in the wheat fields.

Theres actually some pretty big differences between MCSs and tropical activity. Tropical cyclones have very low SFC pressure (obviously), with high pressure aloft (the high pressure allows air to sink into the eye). The strongest winds are found at the SFC-850mb as well, where-as extratropical systems/MCSs tend to have the stronger wind aloft (except for SFC based convective wind gusts). I am no hurricane expert either, so feel free to correct me if I am wrong, or add in extra details...

 

[JHadorn]

That's a pretty intersting picture. Where do you find those?

 

[Joel Wright]

That is one impressive MCV! :shock:

 

[Shyanna Busch]

The storms that hit yesterday morning here in MO were intense. I was at work and when the storm warning came out it said hurricane type winds. I watched the storm from my clients front porch and it looked just like the videos I've seen of hurricanes. It was awesome to watch.

 

[Tony Laubach]

:shock: Wow! That's cool! :shock:

 

[Court Hubbard]

those satellite pictures are unreal, i can't imagine what the winds were like, very cool.

 

[Larry J. Kosch]

GOES-10 and GOES-12

Someone asked me for the URLs for the GOES SATS:

http://www.cira.colostate.edu/Special/Curr...Wx/g12arm10.asp

This connects you to the GOES-12 SAT which gives you a view of NE and CO from the SE. If you wanted to see the SW view, change the g12arm to g10arm in the URL.

That will switch you to the GOES-10 SAT, which will give you a SW view of NE, a better view of OK, TX and some of the states further east. The pictures are updated every five minutes so if you watch it carefully when it refreshes, you can see the progress of the storms.

I find this site useful in looking at cloud fomations and I love seeing how the boundaries shows up on the VIS SAT. And when the storms fire up, they look like little white flattop mushrooms growing. And you can see how the overshooting tops would float off into the next state. When a storm is tornadic, you can sometimes see the domes come up on top of the cloud formations. And when the sun starts going down in the west, you can actually see the shadows of the cloud tops on the ground in the SE view and the backside of the storms in the SW view. On a clear day you can see medium size lakes and rivers. Once CO was totally clear and I can see snow on the mountain tops.

I look at GOES-10 and GOES-12 a lot because you can see the storms forming long before they show up on NWS radar. And you can anticipate a SWW watch long before its issued.

Today it looks a little bored, but when the storms come, watch out!!

Larry

 

[David Wolfson]

Speaking of MCS "hurricanes", check out the Southern Arizona GOES shot right now (18:30 GMT). See it and loop it at: http://weather.cod.edu/analysis/analysis.1kmvis.html

It shows an MCS just moving off the Mexican coast into the Gulf of California. It's definitely developing a circulation and it'll be interesting to see what happens when it gets out over the steamy water.

 

[rdale]

"And you can anticipate a SWW watch long before its issued."

SWW watch = ?