Eagle Eye

Tornado on Adam Lucio's stream it appears. Mean storm.

Reed dominating as usual, already up close and personal with the crazy storms of course. Started off very quickly. Got close to a funnel cloud that was just about touching the ground and as always with Reed it was a "Big time tornado" but definitely a fast start.

WeatherArc I've got a driving lesson at 6:45 so I may as well stay up for it ha ha. For early season this is a ridiculously high end potential but very very conditional.

Focus is now on tomorrow All modes risks. Conditionally severe tornadic potential I would say based off mode. High 3CAPE and low freezing with a classic C low-level hodograph is looking fairly favourable for severe hail I would say. Along with that, the low LCL's and fairly high DCAPE should convert a lot of that into downwards momentum for severe wind gusts as well. Don't think it's massive and only slightly severe favourable DCAPE but if linear mode can be upgraded to further, that could go hatched but I think we're too late for that strong of an upgrade. The low LCL's, high vorticity and low-level energy could contribute to tornadic development. This would especially be evident with isolated Supercells away from the clustering currently forecasted. An isolated Supercell taking up the environmental potential could cause a significant tornado but it's very conditional on that isolated Supercell forming in all the mess.

Another good convection day. petal_20240224_173728.mp4

The photos from last nights coastal skimmers/channel showers and storms.

Another day, another set of circumstances for me missing lighting. First off, first mini-distant storm, had to charge my camera. Second mini-distant storm set camera to 20 second exposures automatically for a burst, 2 seconds after the burst finishes, lightning strikes, a CG, that I saw on my camera as it was on but it had just stopped filming and if there would've been 1 more picture to the burst I would've got the lightning.

Can't confirm it but think that's the first lightning of the season seen for me, big distant flash whilst I was lying in bed and looked out and saw some CB's also lightning has shown up in the channel recently.

Pre-multi clustered storm thingy.

Fun examples of a leading stratiform region from the cold front driven first squall ahead/in line with the low/developing low to it's north tilted SE. Whereas the NE tilted system with a leading stratiform region from a trough behind the low's centre. Leading stratiform region - Winds flowing back to front. Trailing stratiform region - Winds flowing from front to back. With the pulling towards a low pressure it makes total sense. Let's talk cell motions as well. Following the shearing direction. The majority of the low-level shear should contribute to NE movement, whereas cell motion from a lot of what I see appears to follow the upshearing direction which is SE. Hence the bottom cell moves SE whereas the system moves NE. Also watch how the cell just to the south of the one I highlighted also moves SE. Storm movement is still NE here with the shearing direction NE but cell motion should also be NE as the upshear is slightly NE of surface shear. There we go, yes they're all moving NE. There's still replacement cycles though and especially away from France as we've seem it can easily get messier over the channel.

Convective Outlook️ A couple different linear modes appear likely to push through the south and eastern parts of the country but some models do push convection into the midlands and the north as well though. Most convection appears to be likely in the southern parts of the country. An initial system should move through the country in the morning moving NE. Hitting the SW between about 4-8am then moving NE fairly slowly till it hits east Anglia and maybe the SE around 11am maybe delayed till mid day. This could also extend further north into the midlands and the north depending on the size of the PV lobe. Fairly good initial 3CAPE and low-level shearing may favour some tornadic potential but there's still a lot of differences in modelling. Whilst not particularly strong lapse-rates and weak MLCAPE, there may be favourable kinematics for longer lived storm cells and parcels parallel to the flow for 7km cloud heights. The strong buoyant airflow in the SE around mid day near the surface with negative lifted index between the surface and 850s staying strong for most of the SE. Lightning should mostly stay sporadic but for the time of year it's quite a strong system. Given potential cell clustering and momentum exchanges, near severe hail and tornadic potential with turbulent surface flow are possible. The cell clustering is because the next system follows close behind or is part of the main system and clusters up in the eastern part of the country. Eventually showers should start scattering in the afternoon and clearing later on, most of the potential is held in the south and the east mid day, then in the morning further west and there's more mixed signals. Alongside that, wind gusts are likely to be strong because this all happens with a low moving through for the south mainly. Potentially severe wind gusts for coasts and slightly inland. There is potential for a squall line to form if vorticity is strong enough, if that does happen than severe wind gusts inland are also very possible. There's a lot of mixed signals on whether there's merging of systems or whether they disconnect or don't disconnect so it's hard to tell whether a squall line will form. In western Scotland there's a rash of heavy showers likely along rolls of vorticity. Potentially a more favourable area for lightning than the southern mode because of more widespread 50+ J/KG of 3CAPE but less likely to have severe threats associated.

Great example of a cycling mini-squall line today. These occur with interactions between the cold pool strength and low-level shear strength. 1) Tight squall line with weaker trailing stratiform behind it, loses shape as the stratiform region is stronger. 2) Development of cell into the system temporarily outbalances the cold pool and the frontal lobe of the mini-squall tightens. Except for where it disconnects further north with less momentum and shearing effects. 3) Once the new cell cycles into the system, the cold pool re-strengthens and timilts the updrafts back for most of the frontal lobe of convection leading to a loss in the uniform linear mode. Squall line loses shape. 4) As this loses energy, the stratiform region becomes the dominant force and it loses all shape. This is where the mini-squall is unlikely to reform properly till it re-encounters energy.

Convective Outlook️ Behind a clearing cold front, some heavy showers and storms could form around western Ireland and into Scotland where they may become more of a rash of showers. Some sporadic lightning is possible within these showers especially around western Scotland. This is due to a trough just to the north of Scotland and one west of Ireland. Moist air is pulled up through Scotland, leading to a fairly strong amount of moisture convergence in western Scotland. A fairly buoyant airflow for the time of year is wrapped up and carried north by the trough and some of it hangs low into western Scotland with the moisture convergence. This also coincides with very strong lapse-rates in similar areas and moderate saturation. Relatively high deep-layer shear also favours good situations for longer lived single-cell storms and a higher risk of lightning due to that and the moderate saturation. All of the buoyant and moist airflow leads to 100+ J/KG of 3CAPE and 200-300 J/KG of MLCAPE so most convective potential is kept rather low in the atmosphere but the favourable buoyancy and shearing may act as kinematic forcings to push the storms beyond the 5.5-6km maximum mostly predicted. This depends on how much time the cells can live though and whether it will be more of a cycling mode especially with how messy some forecasts predict the showers to be organised. The high shear and high 3CAPE may be favourable for a Supercell somewhere especially if it were later in the year but I don't think it'll be enough. Something to keep an eye out for and if one were to form then there's enough support for some slightly below severe hail. Similarly there's enough low-level shear and 3CAPE that if enough streamwise flow can be reached along the high potentially available vortcitiy fields mainly in western Scotland then a tornado couldn't be ruled out. The western Ireland and surrounding area of western Scotland risk is more due to the general conditions surrounding the western Scotland risk than anything, in Ireland and isolated showers are a risk and the rash of showers may live long enough to push further east into Scotland whilst maintaining some lightning potential. If the rash of showers does upscale as a proper PV lobe forms then the low-level energy and low-level sheer may allow for some relatively strong wind gusts as well. Nothing severe appears likely but an upscaling would increase the potential for that risk.

Lovely day for some convection. P1310655 copy.mp4 P1320001 copy.mp4 P1320567 copy.mp4

Thunderspotter Don't think they'll be anything of note tonight to be honest. Happy birthday for a few days ago.

Convective Outlook️ Behind a cold front clearing east, there's some fairly strong buoyancy for the time of year that could form, allowing for some convective forcing in pockets mainly isolated to the SE but perhaps in some areas further north. Good lapse-rates and 100+ J/KG of 3CAPE possible could well allow for sparodic lightning in showers forming behind the front in the SE. However, this would most likely rely on a storm taking full advantage of its surroundings by taking advantage of all the convective energy possible and so the deep-layet shear being low really limits the risk to sparodic lightning and mostly showery activity in the SE. With the highly saturated layer just above the LCL and low LCL, it's not looking like showers would be highly photographable either. Though, the weakening saturation post 850's do still favour lightning slightly so it's dependant on how much DLS can truly form, some models such as the ICON-D2 up to around 30 knots between 0-4 miles and that may be more favourable for lightning but given time of year and weak MLCAPE, still sparodic at best. DCAPE, not bad low-layer shear and low LCL's might be enough for some fairly gusty conditions below any showers that do form as well but not enough to be severe worthy. Similarly, a low freezing height and some energy may be favourable for small hail but non-severe most likely. There may be a funnel or two from the low LCL's but apart from that no real support that I can see for a t ornado.

It's nearly that time of year (I mean 2-3 months is nearly right?) for the storms to come back properly. Hoping for a good year of course. YouCut_20240217_165417480.mp4

Another of the research into storms. This time some lightning data.

Another helpful part of the website for working out where best will be to get clear view of storms and what to expect from them from Cameron Nixon. Would be helpful to bookmark it for storm days. Parameters – Cameron J. Nixon CAMERONJNIXON.WORDPRESS.COM This is a comprehensive "cheat sheet" of severe convective weather parameters. Definitions of parameters can be found here. Composite parameters and...

Chesil View To be fair to Tamara she's not infallible, even the professionals did seem to think the cold could well occur. It's just been one of those Winters hasnt it.

Despite the Greenland high regime not being favourable for we did get one and we did get a win for the teleconnections. This was from my post back on January 12th. "So we get another seperate jet situation w/favourably kinematics for the high just south of the Caribbean to be forced up again eventually as the momentum forces itself from jet to poleward forcing and so a mid-Atlantic block and/or a Greenland high is very possible" "The CFS weekly is showing the southern disconnected jet and the slow southern descent of - VE zonal wind anomalies into the 2nd week of February ish, hence the Greenland high support increases. " Yes I used the CFS but only to get the timing right and it worked. It's a shame it wasn't helpful for us but predicting if it'll be helpful is a whole other ball park because then that relies on predicting the strength of it, working out support for a Euro high etc. The momentum to poleward forcing wasn't really enough to gain a strong Greenland high, it was just more of a weakened Greenland vortex area. However, if you think you can dismiss teleconnections then you're wrong, in fact, whilst it wasn't what we wanted it did become slightly favourable for us as we got some snow for the north. If you're expecting teleconnections to get it within 100s of miles months away you're wrong. With that said, we continue to run out of time on the chase for Winter, the MJO is going back into it's shell as it re enters a surpressed phase w/the drier air distributed by the changing IOD pattern into the phase 8 area. Along w/that AAM is doing what it's supposed to but it's just not being forced poleward, so we're stuck w/out much momentum and so we're relying on transient events which could well happen and have been shown on the models but they can easily be thrown out of kilter.

Well this Winter certainly happened, if you can call it that.

WeatherArc A Reed Timmer classic to me, the ones that start off just shooting vertically and then showing the strong shear show the potential for tornado's "in the air" for that storm chase.

Renegade Supercells early season in Texas, classic setup of sorts. Could be very interesting to say the least.

Paper from one of Reed's tornado measurements has been written up. Will be an interesting read. https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/17/943/2024/