I drove out to Northwest Oklahoma to chase what appeared to be, at least initially, a favorable setup for tornadic supercells. Convective mode dashed all hope of a tornado outbreak due to strong linear forcing along a cold front and dryline occurring beneath the right entrance region of an upper-level jet. In addition, strong-gusty southerly surface winds dramatically reduced the amount of shear in the 0-1 km AGL layer, which precluded robust low-level mesocyclone development. I was left with a bunch of mainly outflow dominant pseudo-cell activity that was fun to core sample but ultimately left me less than satisfied given the long drive I made to partake in the weather event. I also got to test my tornado pathlength/duration algorithm firsthand. Predicted values were upwards of a pathlength around 20 km along the OK/KS border south of Wichita, but fell to zero at the point of initiation in western Oklahoma due to the lack of low-level shear. Storms just couldn't stay cellular far enough east to experience the stronger low-level shear.
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| This was the hodograph and predicted values of tornado pathlength and duration near the point of storm initiation. The wind profile supported mainly multicell/pseudo-supercell structure, with the lack of low-level vertical wind shear precluding a tornado threat. |
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