gdlewen
EF4
I have a general question about mesocyclone occlusions as viewed from the ground.
This is related to my post in Target Area (2021-4-27 REPORTS: CO/TX). As a rule I do not try to sit in the inflow area of a supercell, mostly because I promised my wife that I would generally avoid placing us in this kind of position to be safe. (She's a reluctant participant who drives when we are close to a cell, but otherwise plays some variant of Candy Crush or June's Journey on her phone.) In this case I felt there was minimal risk, given the clear escape route south and the relatively slow speed of the storm.
As a result, I rarely get to see the perspective I saw on 4/27/2021. I am not worried about the assessment of the state of occlusion of the mesocyclone by about 4:44PM CDT, as viewed by radar. That seems pretty clear. However, I am curious about how the occlusion process looks from the ground. If anyone has any comments about that I would appreciate them. In this case, it looked like a general lowering and encroachment of rain from the left-to-right as the video progressed, ending in a complete obscuration of the mesocyclone as viewed from my location. I am imagining this is a manifestation of the descending reflectivity core (RDC), but short of getting an expert opinion, I have to keep reading papers and reading others' chase reports (which I will do anyways I guess....)
Thanks for any comments--and if you have them, please post examples from your chases. Chasing without feedback is like wiring an open-loop amplifier--I greatly appreciate the "feedback".
This is related to my post in Target Area (2021-4-27 REPORTS: CO/TX). As a rule I do not try to sit in the inflow area of a supercell, mostly because I promised my wife that I would generally avoid placing us in this kind of position to be safe. (She's a reluctant participant who drives when we are close to a cell, but otherwise plays some variant of Candy Crush or June's Journey on her phone.) In this case I felt there was minimal risk, given the clear escape route south and the relatively slow speed of the storm.
As a result, I rarely get to see the perspective I saw on 4/27/2021. I am not worried about the assessment of the state of occlusion of the mesocyclone by about 4:44PM CDT, as viewed by radar. That seems pretty clear. However, I am curious about how the occlusion process looks from the ground. If anyone has any comments about that I would appreciate them. In this case, it looked like a general lowering and encroachment of rain from the left-to-right as the video progressed, ending in a complete obscuration of the mesocyclone as viewed from my location. I am imagining this is a manifestation of the descending reflectivity core (RDC), but short of getting an expert opinion, I have to keep reading papers and reading others' chase reports (which I will do anyways I guess....)
Thanks for any comments--and if you have them, please post examples from your chases. Chasing without feedback is like wiring an open-loop amplifier--I greatly appreciate the "feedback".
