Jeremy Perez
Supporter
In 2010 after my first Great Plains chase, I spent a lot of time going through my photos and working to improve my understanding of storm structure. For one of those exercises, I attempted to diagram the Bowdle supercell. There was a lot of excellent feedback and discussion on all the structure in that beautiful, terrible, amazing storm.
Each new supercell I chase broadens my appreciation for all the ingredients and dynamics that make each one unique and awesome. I enjoy recapping each one and visualizing what was happening, so I’ve been keen to diagram some more recent storms.
What I especially wanted to work on were transition points in space or time where a shelf cloud is merging or morphing into a wall cloud/tail cloud and vice-versa. A lot of times it’s pretty clear what’s what. But because the storm and its environment don’t care about taxonomy, there are plenty of cases where things ride along a diffuse spectrum. To me, it’s educational to watch these things unfold and look for transitions where one thing becomes another, and what that means for the fluid movement and interaction of near-storm air masses.
So, here is a batch of a few more (images link to larger versions). I’m definitely interested in any thoughts on the interpretation, or if anyone has any they’d like to throw in, or re-diagram what I’ve posted.
Denver Supercell - May 21, 2014
While this storm was still strengthening over Denver Metro and headed toward the airport, it had a very compact RFD shelf that I wanted to call a wall cloud at first glance. But the RFD appears to be responsible for lifting this prominent feature out ahead of the base while the true wall clouds spins away behind. Mike Olbinski’s time lapse nicely demonstrates the dynamics (See the 6:24 segment of the video).
![](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.perezmedia.net%2Fceruleanarc%2Fassets_c%2F2014%2F12%2Fimg20140521_IMG_1243-Edit_lg-thumb-520x346-356.jpg&hash=342ba2c88788a4a5591f328480053cb7)
![](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.perezmedia.net%2Fceruleanarc%2Fassets_c%2F2014%2F12%2Fimg20140521_IMG_1243-Edit-Diagram_lg-thumb-520x346-359.jpg&hash=49ecf2dd78fe3b46162f84b790d73ff4)
Each new supercell I chase broadens my appreciation for all the ingredients and dynamics that make each one unique and awesome. I enjoy recapping each one and visualizing what was happening, so I’ve been keen to diagram some more recent storms.
What I especially wanted to work on were transition points in space or time where a shelf cloud is merging or morphing into a wall cloud/tail cloud and vice-versa. A lot of times it’s pretty clear what’s what. But because the storm and its environment don’t care about taxonomy, there are plenty of cases where things ride along a diffuse spectrum. To me, it’s educational to watch these things unfold and look for transitions where one thing becomes another, and what that means for the fluid movement and interaction of near-storm air masses.
So, here is a batch of a few more (images link to larger versions). I’m definitely interested in any thoughts on the interpretation, or if anyone has any they’d like to throw in, or re-diagram what I’ve posted.
Denver Supercell - May 21, 2014
While this storm was still strengthening over Denver Metro and headed toward the airport, it had a very compact RFD shelf that I wanted to call a wall cloud at first glance. But the RFD appears to be responsible for lifting this prominent feature out ahead of the base while the true wall clouds spins away behind. Mike Olbinski’s time lapse nicely demonstrates the dynamics (See the 6:24 segment of the video).
![](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.perezmedia.net%2Fceruleanarc%2Fassets_c%2F2014%2F12%2Fimg20140521_IMG_1243-Edit_lg-thumb-520x346-356.jpg&hash=342ba2c88788a4a5591f328480053cb7)
![](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.perezmedia.net%2Fceruleanarc%2Fassets_c%2F2014%2F12%2Fimg20140521_IMG_1243-Edit-Diagram_lg-thumb-520x346-359.jpg&hash=49ecf2dd78fe3b46162f84b790d73ff4)