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More days than not when svr wx occurs and it is favorable for supercells, deep layer (0-6 km) shear is good/great, but low-level (0-1 km) is weak. So you can get intense supercells w/ a nasty mesocyclone at mid-levels, but no real signature for rotation or a TDS at low-levels, and thus no tors. I've seen storms like this before in the Plains, You'd think there would be at least be an organized wall cloud for such an intense mesocyclone aloft, but just ragged, disorganized scud. Yet the storm is dumping giant hail and has incredible structure! A rule of thumb I look at for a basic start for a decent tor day is winds at least 30 kt at 925 mb. That gets you you low-level speed shear, which is important. Next, is there any veering of the winds sfc to 850? Low-level directional shear is paramount, esp.for sig tors. Is there a warm front involved? We are taught the cold fronts are the big tstm producers, and they are, but some of best intense tornadic supercells are those that form on or very close to a warm front, and ride along it. Winds locally are backed at the sfc just ahead of a warm front, but veer quicky aloft, so localized shear/helicity can be much higher than the environmental shear/helicity. Typically in most supercells, the mesocyclone (lowest pressure), is at mid-levels, the if conditions are right, the low-levels can organize for solid rotation. The exception is for TC environments. Supercells are often very low-topped, (might not even be 15,000 ft!), and deep layer shear (0-6 km) is not that great, but low-level shear (0-1 km) is excellent,owing to the strongest winds in a TC often found 925 mb to just a few 100 ft above the sfc. So you can get tors in swarms (look at what the remains of Ivan did in VA in Sep 2004), but most are weak, even a higher percentage from their continental counterparts b/c you don't have much CAPE in a TC environment, so updraft acceleration typically can't support strong/intense tors.

A couple shots of the storm rolling in

skies starting to get dark again

All the storms split right around me. 0.14" on my PWS

On my third or fourth storm of the day. This one is the most intense so far. Lost power for a moment but it’s back now. 80F/DP 78F

Thunderstorm here now with a downpour and some close CTG lightning. Barely any wind.

18z hrrr had that pegged

Got the MCD for western areas...only an hour after I suspected maybe I meant 5:00 CT

Right in the thick of that warning issued for Montco. Probably ~25mph gust with moderate rain. Worst was a CTG strike on the pole down the street. Power back came back in a few minutes though

That was pretty intense. Winds probably peaked in the 40-50 mph range. Just like this morning, the lightning was impressive. Lost power briefly. 1.35" for the day.

So I was checking out AccuWeather's future radar, and it shows the Williamsport complex dropping southeast to about Hazleton and then curving east northeast. Does the upper air steering currents support this, or is it's depiction likely wrong?

Round two starting to pop-pop-popcorn…

Okay. Different story, lol. I have been in many a boat where the lake becomes an ocean. Zero fun!

Seems like all the earlier convection and cloud cover kept the warm front farther south. This along with the cold front still well back to our west could be at least some of why the intensity of the convection (severe wise) has been tempered so far.

Lots o snow in Chile Sent from my SM-S921U using Tapatalk

We brightened and dried a bit and heavy showers just popped here in E CT

And memorable is relative and location specific. Short distances when it comes to tstms can be huge. Ever happen to get a storm that just maxes out over your location w/ crazy CGs so close and relentless for like 5 min, and you are ducking for cover even indoors b/c the thunder so atypically loud and you are literally hearing electrical click/pops before or during every strike? And then after it is like, "whoa, best ever!" But is a very localized experience, esp. when it comes to close lightning strikes and how loud the thunder is. Still, when it happens, it is awesome! Gets the adrenaline pumping! I can never get enough of such experiences. Give me tons of LTG!

For the record here is the 18z LWX Balloon. Really impressive thermodynamically. Not so impressive kinematically. Shear is lackluster for anything organized.

Weak sauce. A couple rumbles of thunder and some light rain. Maybe something later? Hopefully? And KDIX broke... Again.

Getting crushed here now. Frequent lightning, wind is picking up bigtime. Pouring. Hope it stays below severe criteria. I just want the rain.

Really healthy look in the subsurface. Warm pool is extending much further west than 1997 at this time. This is a good El Nino to test everything against

Storm coverage was better than fcst than either the HRRR or RRFS had ydy. Some supercell structures as well, but they had tough time sustaining for very long. Looking at the radar loop, things got messy very quickly w/ storms moving in various directions due to outflow and rotation, colliding w/ each other. This probably limited the svr wx b/c no one storm could sustain for long, so we got a lot of pulse svr storms, despite the decent wind shear and a lot of CAPE. Maybe if the smoke hung around thicker longer, that would have meant less storms, but any storm would have had a better chance to sustain and rotate? The balance when it comes to the mesoscale is tricky. Small differences can be huge as to storm mode, coverage, and severity, often you don't know it until it is happening. This unknown factor has it appeal. We are still "surprised" at times (June 5, 2024 being among the best recent example), and things can look exactly alike on paper for a setup on two days, but what actually happens as to sensible wx can be a lot different. You still get tstms and svr wx, but it goes far beyond that. Will the storms train/backbuild? How intense (frequency) will the CGs be? (that varies a lot it seems). Discrete cells, a SQLN, or clusters? And who exactly will get crushed? So localized in many cases!

Its here. Sounds wicked. Got some cool shots while it was rolling in.

Whole lotta meh. 0.06" Sent from my SM-S921U using Tapatalk