Question about left, or right movers

[J.K Oudshoorn]

Hello,

In The Netherlands, we have rightmovers sometimes... but I'm now in Cushing, OK... and ofcourse I'm going to do some chasing (with my dad).. but then 2 questions popped up...

Wich of these do occur the most in the plains, left or right movers?
From wich direction is the best to watch a T-cell from?

Thanks much,

koos

 

[Mikey Gribble]

Right movers. There are of course storms that deviate to the left of the mean flow after a split, but they rarely produce tornadoes.
As far as where to watch a storm goes you should probably stay south or southeast of the updraft base since you haven't chased much here before. South or southeast is the safest option. I like to get East of the updraft base, but then you are kind of directly in front of the business end of the storm. IMO you get better photo opportunities this way, but I wouldn't do it until you have several years of experience under your belt. Hope this helps.

 

[Bill Tabor]

Yep. Right turning motion is typically a sign of strengthening of a supercell. It would be one clue you would look for in potential to produce a tornado or big hail. While chasing you should also be aware of and wary of it doing this and consider your road network option in case it does.

 

[Bobby Prentice]

The following radar animation shows a good example of splitting supercells. The right-split is almost always the best one to chase. The left-split typically moves much faster and rarely produces tornadoes.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/Image/unr/07-24-00/july24-anim.gif

Right splitting supercells are favored in the northern hemisphere because in thunderstorm environments the wind typically veers (turns clockwise) and increases with altitude.

I don't want to get too technical here, but in the early stages of supercell thunderstorm development, if a hodograph exhibits strong clock-wise curvature (wind shear) with height within the low-level inflow layer of the storm (lowest few kilometers), often times the left split dies so quickly it isn't easily observed visually with the naked eye or on radar.

 

[Phil Kurimski]

If you look on page 9 of the basic spotters field guide (pdf page 14 of 22) you will see the schematic of a tornadic supercell:

http://www.weather.gov/om/brochures/basicspot.pdf

the best place to be is to the southeast of a storm for a right moving supercell. As you can see from the diagram if you are to the north or west of the storm your view will be obscured by rain and/or hail. Keep storm motion in mind when trying to stay to the southeast of a storm. Right moving supercells can move east...northeast...or even south! The direction the storm is moving is included in warnings and statements issued by the local NWS office.

Good luck chasing this year!