The Ups and Downs of Severe Convective Storms
Abstract
Supercell storms produce a wide range of severe weather including large hail, tornadoes and strong low-level winds. These storms have rotating updrafts that tend to be the strongest of all convective storm updrafts observed on Earth. Evaporatively-generated cold pools are also a significant feature of these storm systems, playing a critical role in storm maintenance and the generation of low-level horizontal vorticity. In spite of the important role played by updrafts and cold pools in driving storm intensity and severe weather, they are often poorly represented within operational and research numerical models. The CSU Convective CLoud Outflows and UpDrafts Experiment (C3LOUD-Ex) was conducted during the summer of 2016 and spring of 2017 in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming with the goals of obtaining detailed observations of supercell storms including: (1) thunderstorm updraft characteristics, in particular updraft velocities and thermodynamics, and how these change with height; and (2) cold pool characteristics, in particular heterogeneities in temperature, pressure and moisture. A range of instrumentation was deployed including a fleet of sUAS, radiosondes, surface stations and the CSU-CHILL research radar. Successful observations were made of 6 supercell updrafts and 13 cold pools during this campaign. These observations have been used to evaluate high-resolution simulations of supercell updrafts and cold pools. The results of these comparisons and the implications for severe storm modeling will be presented.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.A32C..06V
- Keywords:
-
- 3310 Clouds and cloud feedbacks;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSESDE: 3314 Convective processes;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSESDE: 3329 Mesoscale meteorology;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSESDE: 3354 Precipitation;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES