What Is The Smallest Recorded Supercell?

[nickgrillo]

I seen a thread here questioning about the largest...so I am asking, what is the smallest ever known supercell? Mini-sups are common in the Upper Midwest; so does anybody know the SMALLEST known supercell in terms of width, length or diameter?

..Nick..

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Originally posted by nickgrillo
so does anybody know the SMALLEST known supercell?

These were pretty small:

http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/wrd/swat/Cases/95...50213/case.html

http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/wrd/swat/Cases/98...81028/case.html

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

Here is a small one too, near Hays, kansas back in May of 2003...



Above: Base of the "zero-P" storm.



Above: This entire cloud column was rotating + highly sheared.

 

[Scott Weberpal]

Question about the "zero-P supercell". Is it truly a supercell? Wouldn't a true supercell have to have a sustained updraft and downdraft? Is there any indication the storm had a sustained downdraft? Was the updraft sustained for a significant amount of time?

 

[Doug Raflik]

This was back in 2002. I chased this mini supercell across 3 counties in Wisconsin. NWS was about to issue a tor warn for this storm based on radar until they found out I had a good eye on it and would tell them if anything was happening. As SOON as the sun dropped behind the horizon and the storm lost daytime heating, it rapidly disolved to nothing, but as this process occured, you could see a funnel appear. It didnt lower out of the cloud. It was already IN the cloud, and when the outter parts of the updraft evaporated, it became visible. There are better pictures of another tiny storm in Wisconsin somewhere from this same day. Chris Gullikson was on that storm.

The pics dont seem to show, here are links...

http://www.dougraflikphotography.com/bdsc.jpg

http://www.dougraflikphotography.com/fun3.JPG

[Broken External Image]:http://www.dougraflikphotography.com/bdsc.jpg

[Broken External Image]:http://www.dougraflikphotography.com/fun3.JPG

Doug Raflik

 

[Doug Raflik]

Here is the other "mini supercell" from this day...

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

I can see where there would be issues in terms of what is and isn't a supercell, though there should be little question on this one. This is the smallest supercell I have seen, though this is later in its life as it was spining itself to death. This is the storm that produced the tornado south of woodward on May 4th 2007, just as this one was dieing the Greensburg storm was erupting, in fact I'm not so sure that isn't the Greensburg storm getting going in the background. It may look harmless, but where I took this picture there were golfballs on the ground... My avatar is the same storm earlier in its life

 

[Darrin Rasberry]

Weren't the storms on May 24th in NE this year mini-sups?

 

[Paul Hadfield]

April 2006 C IL, we grow em' small round here...

[Broken External Image]:http://pawleewurx.com/st/002.jpg

Talk about sustained updraft, it basically just parked all the way through dusk. Note: perhaps decieving but this was not a multicell cluster. One up, one down.

Forget the date but pretty sure John Farley remembers this day, lotsa hailers.

Edit: referencing Scott's reply, if a supercell is a single rotating updraft, then at what point does the updraft lose the "updraft" and earn status as "supercell"? Would the descriptive change be one measured scientifically or determined visually?

 

[Paul Knightley]

In the UK, winter-time showers and thunderstorms often occur in regions of high wind shear, and sometimes produce tornadoes and relatively large hail. Given our lack of publically available Doppler at the moment, it's hard to say whether they have sustained and deep rotation; however, I would think some have. These are usually no more than a few miles across at most.

Remember that it's the behaviour of the storm which classes it as a supercell, and not the size. However, you then get to the sticky area of what conditions should be met to class it as a supercell!

 

[cdcollura]

Good day,

Question about the "zero-P supercell". Is it truly a supercell? Wouldn't a true supercell have to have a sustained updraft and downdraft? Is there any indication the storm had a sustained downdraft? Was the updraft sustained for a significant amount of time?

I am not sure about even calling this a "supercell" in my post. But we took a time-lapse of it and it was rotating hard. The "cell" was way too small to have any precip core and such, but the rotation of the cloud column was impressive.

I used to have a time-lapse of this cell posted a while back but I have to try to find it. I do have a link to a music video of the chase of 2003, and in the video around position 0:42 seconds in, a brief shot of the timelapse can be seen. (Link is below, requires real-player)...

http://www.sky-chaser.com/m4musvid.htm

The rotation of this cell is very impressive despite it's small size.

 

[Brian Emfinger]

This was from just a few weeks ago (10/9/08)...was nothing more than a red blip on radar.



and from March 21, 2005 (the smallest classic style structure i've seen)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fppWjY4cvx0

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Looks like the original links in my 2005 were changed. Here are the new links:

http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/divisions/warning/swat/Cases/950213/case.html

http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/divisions/warning/swat/Cases/981028/case.html

And here is our infamous supercell-size comparison picture (all images are at the same zoom factor and all storms are tornadic):

http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/divisions/warning/swat/Cases/981028/fourmes.gif

.

 

[Jason Foster]

ZPs....hell yeah...and some of the smallest

Good day,



I am not sure about even calling this a "supercell" in my post. But we took a time-lapse of it and it was rotating hard. The "cell" was way too small to have any precip core and such, but the rotation of the cloud column was impressive.

I used to have a time-lapse of this cell posted a while back but I have to try to find it. I do have a link to a music video of the chase of 2003, and in the video around position 0:42 seconds in, a brief shot of the timelapse can be seen. (Link is below, requires real-player)...

http://www.sky-chaser.com/m4musvid.htm

The rotation of this cell is very impressive despite it's small size.

Dude....that was an awesome little ZP storm. It cork screwed so much. I've got to go back and find the original tape from that and recapture it in different TL speeds. I think the original was at 40fpm. I love that you can see all of us walking around in the foreground.

I also have it as a segment in one of my youtube bits:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlx2hnxuPPM
about 0:10 seconds in. You'll be able to see how small it was. In fact, I don't think it even showed up on radar.

I certainly subscribe to the ZP (zero precipitation) storm...and do believe they are the smallest "supercells" out there.

 

[Wes Carter]

Jason,
That was unreal. Although I've seen some LP's that were not too big, that one takes the cake. I'm not sure if it was a Supercell, but I tend to think it had all of the ingredients except for size. It definately had a strong updraft and inflow. But did it have RFD or FFD? Or did the minute size of it allow the air that rose to be replaced by air from 1000-800mb? Forgive me if my questions seem stupid, I'm still learning.