EWP Blog

Switched domains to the FWD CWA. Ongoing supercell were producing hail over 2″ inches in diameter across eastern Dallas county. KFWS radar showing new supercell developing over the western portion of the county. Cloud top cooling product showed tops of >-21 degrees Celsius. Issued a severe thunderstorm warning based off both 88D reflectivity and cloud top cooling. Have since got reports of ping pong ball size hail.

KFWS radar at 2335z (warning issued on both storms):

Cloud top cooling product about 30 minutes before:

Update 0014z: MESH has shown hail sizes around 1.5″. Most real-time hail reports have been ping pong size. Solid.

Update 0052z: The western Dallas county supercell has mirrored the earlier storm to the east, based off of reflectivity. Hail up to 3″ in diameter has been reported with the storm which is double what the MESH was suggesting. At the same time of the 3″ report near Grand Prairie, divergence aloft increased to 10.7 s-1 with an updraft helicity of 145 m/s2.

Great left mover — developed a strong anticylonic circulation with depth. Went with a tornado warning based on the strong gate-gate shear of about 40 kt. We will see…

CTC on the Lyman/Buffalo County Storm peaked at around -21C/15min at 2145z. Just got a severe report at around 2247 of 1.75 inch hail with the storm in Lynam County so it looks like about a big hit for CTC. MRD/RS

Updraft in north central Colfax county may actually push the severe limits. 40 dbz is reaching higher into the cloud (we are reaching here). The visible cloud presentation has become more intriguing. Lightning has also been detected with this thunderstorms for the first time today.

Cloud top cooling product has shown -11 degrees C, well below our severe threshold, but it is a start.. However, MESH is still underwhelming despite the slight increase. We are still not confident in much activity making off the higher elevations, and the latest run of the OUN WRF continues to support our forecast.

Cloud-top cooling product:

MESH at the same time (look closely, it;s there):

It’s getting bigger. MESH at 2214z is now up to 0.40″.

and as I write this, the temporary strengthening ceased. Now onto storms in the southern ABQ CWA.

We abandoned ship and moved way north to look at the development in SD. Good looking cell moving into Bruce County however the MESH is only up to 0.79. Will continue to monitor since this storm is in an area of 2000-2500 j/kg SBCAPE. Below is an image of the CIMSS CAPE and RUC13 SBCAPE (contour).

While waiting for convection to become surface-based, we overlaid CIMMS NEARCAST 780-500MB CAPE with RAP 850-700MB CAPE.  As I mentioned in a post yesterday, I realize that these two CAPEs were not meant to be compared together as they are computed and sampled differently. But FWIW, I did the comparison at 2200 UTC and was surprised how well they compared.

The axis of CAPE in the RAP from NW of Roswell to the NE corner of NM seems suspicious, given the density of surface observations (see image). Other than that feature, the comparison seems generally good. Perhaps the RAP uses satellite estimates of theta-e or CAPE already.  Something to research.

SNELSON/TY

22Z OUNWRF just in still insists that we will be getting busier as storms develop farther east into the Midland area.  Currently we have one warning out for Jeff Davis…southeast Culberson and Reeves Counties.  We are wondering if the instability has been cut by the mid and high clouds moving across the area.  It is “only” 90 degrees in Midland right now well east of the scattered light shower and isolated thunderstorm areas.

Tim/JeffG

Another strengthening storm developing over the northern slopes of the Davis Mts.  The UAH-CI gave us a 75 several minutes ahead of the development…

Tim/JeffG

Looks like the Lincoln County storm/shower is starting to diminish. Interestingly, the CTC product showed -25c but again, it was over the higher terrain. Today, it seems like whenever anything develops on the higher terrain, it moves off into the lower elevations and dies out. Suspect the storms still cannot realize that reservoir of SBCAPE to the east.

Issued our second Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Persidio County.  Storm is showing strongest Cloud Top Cooling rates observed today around -37C/15 min.  This cell is over northern Mexico way out towards the edge of the KMAF NexRad coverage…with 40 dBZ echo at 35 thousand feet.  We will see how this one pans out as it get closer in on the radar coverage as it moves towards the Davis Mts. Here is the corresponding CI imagery…

Update…KMAF Echo Top shows storm west of the Rio Grande has increased to 54 kft at 2220z. This gave around 30 minute lead time before increase.

Update…storm over Mexico northwest of Candelaria intensified to over 64 dBZ at 2311z. The strong CTC signature gave a lead time of a little over an hour for this intense storm.

Tim/JeffG