Vault, Vault area?

[Jared Farrer]

I am wondering what the vault area exactly is and what it looks like? I am still kinda of fuzzy on this. Does anyone have any pictures? Visually I am still kinda of clueless, with both BWERs in a radar loop and in the field. So I was just wondering if anyone could help me with this?

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

All it is is the visually clear area between the updraft base and precip area...often full of hail.


BWER, bounded weak echo region....essentially a closed hook with weaker echos enclosed in the circle.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

All it is is the visually clear area between the updraft base and precip area...often full of hail.

Actually no. If full of hail, how could this be an echo-free vault? The vault should be precip free. Therefore, the vault is actually caused by the updraft.

 

[Jim Tang]

Here's the vault.

Sorry, I just had to do that.























Anyway, in order to add to this thread, Mr. Edwards of the SPC explains it well:
http://stormeyes.org/tornado/SkyPix/moravia.htm
http://www.stormeyes.org/tornado/SkyPix/dayvault.htm

 

[Jared Farrer]

But,
Thats what I thought, on my last chase I was getting hailed on in this region. Thats part of the reason why I was getting confused. I had it that it was the region between the updraft rain free base and precip cores, often as a visual tower type structure where the rain free base meets the anvil or precip core of some kind.

 

[Bob Schafer]

Okay, totally off-topic, but I love the pic in the second link Jim gave. Then I read the text, and I was, like... "Hey...."

Here's that same storm later on, as it died:

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/scudstudbob/photo/294928804338749053/0

That photo was was put on the ST front page that night. Ahh, fond memory.

 

[Jody Radzik]

That is one AWESOME photograph, Mike. What a monster storm.

 

[Brian Stertz]

Western IA vault 5/10/2005

My favorite vault picture from May 10, 2005 near Audubon IA...we sat in the vault virtually undisturbed by big hail that was falling about 2-3 miles north of our location. This supercell eventually gained a massive hook on DMX radar.​

 

[Jason A.C. Brock]

A bit off topic also but I love pics that have the details of what it is you are seeing posted on them. Not that "Its a wall cloud" but the whole details of what it is one is witnessing. The dynamics physics everything.
Storm spotter classes should have ALOT more of these type of things. I know they have some but they dont go into nearly as much detail. I also know that seeing a photo and actually being near the storm are nearly a complete 180 on what you can learn....there is simply nothing like being there for the storm for yourself. With that being said tho....this would be a great tool for storm spotter training with these type photos and the breakdown of what one is seeing in the photo.
Also Mike Hollingsheads photos are jaw dropping (for those who dont know lol) and should be the standard for what we all want our phptos to look like. He is THE KING of severe weather photograpy.
We just gotta pray him up some storms....;-)

 

[Greg Stumpf]

we sat in the vault

You sat under the vault. To be in the vault, you would need to be aloft, with precip surrounding you on all sides and on top.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

this would be a great tool for storm spotter training with these type photos and the breakdown of what one is seeing in the photo.

Agreed. A lot of spotter training does do this. However, we need to be sure to label the photographs correctly. The arrow should be pointing to the north and top part of the updraft (cloud) to correctly label the vault. Actually, just make the arrow about 40-50% of its original length - that points to the vault area.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Actually no. If full of hail, how could this be an echo-free vault? The vault should be precip free. Therefore, the vault is actually caused by the updraft.

Where on Earth did I say it was ECHO free? Looks like I said "visualy clear". Last I knew a visual vault could have hail falling in it.

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

That's the problem Mike. The vault region was originally defined on radar and not visually. Hence the follow-up by Greg.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Who cares about a radar definition of it. I said VISUALLY CLEAR and mentioned hail falling in there. Maybe chasers will take out their GRx and scan the tilts to see it while they are chasing. That'd be exciting.

But yeah, if one wants to be completely anal about it, that's the "real" definition. If you are a chaser out watching things, I guess it's probably enough to know what it visually looks like and that it might not be precip clear(but still called the vault by chasers). Is there some name chasers use for when it's not completely free of precip, but appears so? I bet it's "vault"....but probably should be "visual vault". But I'm sure that's not acceptable enough.

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

Perhaps the casual chaser doesn't care, but for those of us that are in this field, I sure as heck want to know how the visual features of a storm relate to its appearence on radar.