One of the best italian supercells of all time

[Andrea Griffa]

Hi all
I started this thread just for sharing this nice chase I did on Sept 8th.
We intercepted this monster supercell near Piacenza in North Italy. It probably spawned a tornado but it was few observable for few seconds before it got "eaten" by the rain. I read the local news and they speaks a bout a tornado and damage.

Here's the the video.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2buoIxthvM

 

[Olivier Staiger]

wow... bellissima !!!

looks like LP, but LP here stands not for Limone Piemonte ... ;-)

 

[Andrea Griffa]

wow... bellissima !!!

looks like LP, but LP here stands not for Limone Piemonte ... ;-)

Thanks Ol!

Actually the updraft was pretty rainy for a good part of its life, and it seemed to me more like a classic/ HP supercell.

 

[Mark Blue]

When is the peak severe storm season in Italy? I could dig out my climatology books to research it myself, but thought it would be just as easy to ask you.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

When is the peak severe storm season in Italy? I could dig out my climatology books to research it myself, but thought it would be just as easy to ask you.

That's for sure, Mark
The peak is July and August even if in September it is not so rare to have an outbreak of severe thunderstorms. I make you an exemple, just today, in the far 1970, we had a terrible F4 in Venice that killed many people.
As far as my chase of Sept 8th it's not so common to see something like that in Italy.

 

[Michael Thompson]

Certainly some textbook features - inflow band, obvious RFD cut, juts missing the tornado.

Great pics, thanks for posting.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Certainly some textbook features - inflow band, obvious RFD cut, juts missing the tornado.

Great pics, thanks for posting.

Thanks, Michael
Actually we don't have a official tornado report but just a "local media" report, so probably we'll never know. At any rate, I have some screen captures of a funnel hangin down who lasted for few seconds. I took this while driving before it was wrapped around by heavy rain.

 

[J Allen]

Andrea, while you may not have a local report network this sort of thing is worth reporting to the ESSL (European Severe Storms Lab) for inclusion in the ESWD. http://www.essl.org/ESWD/
Definitely a defined funnel cloud there at a minimum, which would make the database. Any other sort of severe weather identified with the storm?

Lovely inflow features there with a nice cut and inflow tail.

 

[Jarrod Barnett]

Good stuff!

.....

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Andrea, while you may not have a local report network this sort of thing is worth reporting to the ESSL (European Severe Storms Lab) for inclusion in the ESWD. http://www.essl.org/ESWD/
Definitely a defined funnel cloud there at a minimum, which would make the database. Any other sort of severe weather identified with the storm?

Lovely inflow features there with a nice cut and inflow tail.

Thanks Allen, but in Thunderstorm Team site we implemented a new method to get the report from our TT chasers; here we go:

http://www.thunderstormteam.it/stormreport/

If you click on "archivio Stormreport" and insert the right data, you will find the report for that day of chasing. At any rate, I have 2 guys of my staff who look after the reports of our meteorologic events on ESWD database. I think they'll soon do it.
Take care

Andrea

 

[Bob Hartig]

Thanks for sharing this, Andrea. Beautiful photos, and all the more so because they're from Italy, not the American heartland. It's rewarding to see what the rest of the world has to offer in the way of supercells, and to get the perspectives of experienced stormophiles on severe weather in places I may never get to visit.