Northeastern Colorado LP Supercell April 26th 2012

 

 

 

 

 

A day that looked to have dismal hope turned out to be a winner in the chase beginning. Chase 1 was an epic beginning as Northeastern Colorado gave us conditions favorable for a possible organized supercell. Shep and I left approximately around 11:30am and drove to Wiggins, Colorado. My forecast was to aim for Eads, Colorado, but nowcasting I liked the Northeastern Colorado parameters. Even when I was tempted to see what would happen as the beginning of cyclogenesis.  This although would only happen later in the evening in southcentral CO, so I made the decision to hang around the backyard for a possible chance of convection of the front range to hold itself together in the afternoon hours. Shep and I sat around the Ft Morgan/Wiggins area for most the afternoon till 4-5PM when the isolated cell finally made its way into the slight risk line. When I say line, I mean the actual drawn line on the SPC. First it was a long afternoon of waiting and slow progression of weakening and surviving, our stomachs craved substanance (CONEYS FROM SONIC).  We watched the cell begin to beef up as we crammed our food down and headed back up to the now severe warned cell. We were able to find energy again. Both with our hunger for food and a storm, it was now a chase worth mentioning as the severe warned cell started to level out a nice high base. We were able to leisure as this storm all day wasn’t moving fast at all. We could at points of the chase stop to enjoy the mesocyclonic layering structure. Meanwhile it was well relaxed chase and the photos can do all the talking.

Shep was able to do some incredible timelapse and stills of lightning photography while I just watched in amazement. Sitting just west of Sterling we were able to enjoy some nice CG’s out of another impressive meso based storm.

On the way home, an explosive amount of convection began to erupt off the foothills around 9PM. The result of the low pressure enhancing out from the south and a substantial amount of moisture left from earlier convection allowed for a crazy lightning show all around the Front Range. We were driving west towards Greeley on Hwy 14 when Shep and I noticed all the strobe lightning going on just to our south moving quickly due north. We finally got to Hwy 392 which goes southwest towards Greeley and stopped just northeast of Greeley to time-lapse the lightning show moving towards us. The convection was impressive with a defined mesocyclone and low lingering wall cloud. From further investigation of footage, the non-severe cell moving quite rapidly northwards may have produced a funnel, but with night time exposure and flashes of lightning illumination, it is very hard to be convicted of it rotating. With that in mind it is labeled as rotating edge scud for developing wall. The radar and velocity captures both the mesocyclonic feature and outflow very easily.

 

 

Make sure to check out the video, FREAKIN SWEET TIMELAPSES!!!

ase 1

Reports: None

 AMAZING VIDEOS FROM CHASE 1:

Day Timelapse Night Timelapse

Today Timelapsed Some Clouds Rollin Through....

Garden Variety Thunderstorms rolling through the front range. Decided to timelapse and this is what happened.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5p5jlTFeFU&feature=youtu.be

Also filmed the sunset, wasn't as spectacular I was hoping out to be, but watched a helicopter take off, right around 1:00 into it....watch the outflow produced by the heli...lol.....the rest is history
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeSnN3dk4OM&feature=youtu.be

Denver's First Spring Severe Thunderstorm of 2012 Season

It goes by saying, wow. Today was an unexpected surprise given I only suspected a hailer and some lightning. If it were to go severe it would be the threat of marginal hail. It was a different type of severe thunderstorm but a typical seasonal spring beginning to the Denver Front Range. As a line of intense storms blew up in the foothills making its way into conditions favorable for an intense blow up scene. My concern was the convection in the south cutting off any warm inflow, but I was wrong. I didn't think it to realize for the past month we had no precipitation and were left with warm pools of air from all the continuous daytime heating from the past month. The southeasterly winds were still pouring in strong against the Palmer into the Denver area providing enough inflow along with the dewpoints closing near the 50's. The Helicity values were perfect for some convergence and some organization of a very strong severe thunderstorm that went tornado warned. Yes. TORNADO WARNED.

The story goes. I went outside from the hospital to get the inflow running on my back and watch the line of storms pushing over the foothills. A linear of nice high based clouds began billowing in from the southwest all the way to DIA. As soon as orographic lifting began to play a role in the embedded chaos of high based thunderstorms. The clouds began rising with strong vertical shear and began converging pretty much right over the hospital. Talk about being in the right place at the right time for once. I just sat there letting the cool rain drops that occasionally fell bring the sensation of spring in my nose. Now the part where it gets interesting is, this sucker has just went severe and I have no idea. I sat there watching the towering cu's busting through the embedded mess, followed with the southern edge of the cell beginning an inflow tail (feeder cloud) than in a dry little bitty slot was incredibly unusual fast horizonal rising motion. The horizontal rising motion along with the cool bitter rain turning warm from an inflow breeze of warm moist air got me all jittery with excitement. It was passing over the hospital and it was hard to see over the building as it was about to do something great!

I ran inside and up the elevator soooo fast. I looked out the near window off the elevator and could see to my east northeastern direction the beginning of a developing funnel cloud. At the this point I started snapping away on my phone. I stood there in amazement and didn't really tell anyone, cause last thing we needed was for everyone to panic. Funny thing is after I watched the whole funneling process for 2 minutes. The hospital finally put out the Tornado Warning drill. Yea they were 10 minutes late for that, hmmm might need to look into that issue here. All in all can't complain.