Incredible supercells in northeast Italy, 24/07/2007

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Jul 8, 2004
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494
Location
SW Slovenia, Europe
Hey guys!

I wanted to share a chase log of storm chase I made on July 24th in northeastern Italy as a great day was expected. It was a moderate risk day with a big threat for rotating storms in my chasing area. Here are photo details...

I was nowcasting all from home that day. When things came close to explosion, I left home at around 4pm. I am driving towards the ITA/SLO border and watching those strong cells in northern Friuli...

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I noticed an overshooting top while I was driving near Villese...and quickly decided to go diretly to this cell, as it looked very good on latest radar scans. It was located a bit WNW of Udine in that time...

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I went of the highway at Udine-sud exit and was just south of this cell. Nice mammatus in front of me, so I continued driving north to intercept this baby :)

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When I am approching the cell, its obvious...supercell is here! The first one of the day...very nice shape and good wall cloud under the meso...

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A bit later a nice shelf appeared on the right...

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It was then time to go, on the radar I noticed another monster cell coming from the west...so I quickly turned west and continued on the road from Udine towards Splimbergo...when I am coming closer its too obvious again...perfect conditions today, second supercell is here! Amazing lowering with wall cloud...here we go!

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Driving towards the mesocyclone and soon I found a great spot near village Mereto di Tomba for observing the whole supercell...the structure was honestly INSANE! Oh man it was rotating so fast and just look at the inflow tail/clouds coming from the right...incredible!

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Here is a combination of two vertical photos to see the shape of whole beauty...too cute...

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Another few shots of the structure...very similar structure that we observed in Texas in US this year on May 23rd (remember the first supercell in TX we all chased?)...massive inflow!

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It was soon time to escape then as I was able to hear heavy precipitation and hail bombing in front of me. I turned south and took this photo from Basilliano just before torrential rain with hail ~2cm hit me on the road...scary view into the rapidly coming shelf cloud...

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I managed to escape south of the precipitation core and stopped a bit north of Talmassons because explosive convection started just east of there. I haven't seen such a rapid formations of updraft towers for a long time...just incredible! Here are some shots...

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Then I was following these cells towards Palmanova since I wanted to go ahead of the cells again, one shot from Palmanova towards northeast...

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I continued south and stopped in Villese because new cells were exploding fast along the outflow boudary west of highway...quickly cell formed and got me in the rain...

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I wanted to go out of the rain but it started with hail ~2-3cm again and highway became blocked, people were going crazy :drink Soon I wasn't able to go further, it all stopped near Ronchi exit, also visibility dropped only to 10-20m as hailstorm came there. I had to wait and unortunatelly missed the incredible shelf cloud in front of this cell which I wanted to observe from Sistiana...but oh well, maybe next time. I arrived to Sistiana 15min after the cell pass near Monfalcone and took some pics towards Friuli plains...as few cells were still forming there...

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Skies were already clearing behing this MCS, crystal clear towards the Alps at sunset...

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I was able to watch the whole system which was going south-southeast towards Croatia later...amazing colors and structure at sunset!

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Some nice exploding updraft was present as well...

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Meanwhile a new strong cell formed in southern Friuli and surprisedly it had a supercell structure again...grrrreat, sup' #3!

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I continued towards home and took some more photos of the system moving away towards south...with incredible mammatus in the back...

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All photos here: http://www.weather-photos.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=221

Enjoy the pics!

Regards from Slovenia,
Marko
 
wow those are asome shots Marko! I realy like the shots of the rapidly developing storms those were just spectacular. Keep up the good work!
 
Very nice shots Marko! That storm was definitely a beauty! How would you describe the chase terrain where you were chasing at? It looked like a good mixture of bad and good from the shots for sure.
 
Wow, Marko......amazing structure & shots!!!! Congratulations!
Truly a dream-chase!
I especially like the rockhard blue-grey towers in a row. These mastodonts look like huge faces in the sky (like Mount Rushmore) :)
 
Thanks!

Scott,
it was not in Po valley, this region is called Friuli-Venezia Giulia in northeast Italy (check the map, area around Udine): http://www.in-italia.de/images/Map_Location/Map_17.gif. After the big heatwave (numerous all-time station records were broken in central EU and Balkanian peninsula) drought is pretty extreme in some places, usually its pretty dry here during summer, but this year (and it was the same last year) we got only ~20% of an average rainfall in some places. Monthly ETO near 200mm against 30-50mm of rainfall, so you can imagine.

Chris,
the chase terrain in Friuli plains is very good, the only problem is a lot of villages and local roads surrounded with big cornfields which are disturbing your view many times. Those evening shots were taken from the coast near "Monfalcone" if you check on the map.

Menno,
those towers were incredible, wish I'd have wide angle lenses or at least 5D camera in that time... ;>
 
Great pics Marko, congratulations!
Having experienced the 9/11 1970 deadly tornado in Padua (25 km SW of Venice) when I was 5 years old, I'm not really surprised seeing impressive supercells in this northeastern part of Italy. I wish I'd live a bit closer to that region, although by american standards it's not very far from Geneva, just 400-500 miles away!

Here is a link to an interesting article (in italian) with pictures on the venetian 1970 tornado:
http://storms.meteonetwork.it/modules/news/article.php?storyid=40

BTW, from 5 to 15th of September I'll be on vacation near Venice and also in Trieste for the ECSS...
 
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