Severe weather events the past couple weeks have incuded a highly visible tornado along the Palmer Divide in Colorado, and strong tornadoes near Macksville KS, Aurora NE, and Austin MN. Tornadoes in Kansas yesterday (5-10 reports on Saturday 6/20/09) weren't anywhere near as strong, but were more of a surprise within a subtle and somewhat unusual environment. Pics above from a supercell in Franklin County of eastern Kansas show one of the brief tornadoes, courtesy Rick Schmidt and Randy Cooper.
The surface map (2nd graphic above) at late afternoon confirmed an east-west warm front moving north through Kansas, with easterly winds and dew points in the 70s F. The RUC model at 500mb (3rd graphic above) showed upper energy in the form of a wind max moving across Kansas from the southwest, and CAPE-SRH combinations (EHI) and CAPE in low-levels (also in 3rd graphic above) forecast to be maximized across central and eastern Kansas. For any thunderstorms forming along and north of the front, this suggests that supercells were possible, and maybe some tornadoes. Radar above (4th graphic above) shows storms shortly after 7 p.m. CDT over Kansas, with arrows indicating tornadic storms at that time (the complex near Hutchinson KS became tornadic later).
The RUC analysis sounding over eastern Kansas at Topeka at 7 p.m. CDT (last graphic above) matched the observed Topeka RAOB very well. To my mind, the most interesting feature was the area of fattest CAPE located at 600 mb (about 4 km or 13,000 ft above ground). Compare that with the RUC analysis associated with the Aurora NE tornado (also shown in last graphic above), where wind shear/SRH and total CAPE were much larger, but the fattest area of CAPE was located much higher (near 300 mb, or roughly 9 km/30,000 ft above ground). On the Topeka profile from yesterday, the fattest area of CAPE was at least _3 miles_ lower in the vertical than in Wednesday's Nebraska tornado environment. Although Saturday's storms weren't anywhere near as strong or severe, they produced a number of tornadoes (9 reports on the SPC log). The fat area of CAPE near 600 mb (relatively low in the profile, associated with cold air at that level) was evident on RUC profiles across much of Kansas, and was probably a notable contributor to the number of weak tornado and funnel reports from western to central and eastern Kansas on 6/20/09. What probably happens in such settings is that "fat" CAPE closer to the ground produces more rapid upward accelerations in updrafts, translating to more vertical stretching which can cause tornadoes and funnels, even in a weaker shear environment, not unlike many tornado events associated with 500 mb cold core lows. The lack of large SRH and low-level shear on Saturday (compare the wind profiles on the 2 soundings shown above) probably kept Saturday's tornadoes brief and weak.
Sorry about no posts lately... been busy with non-weather stuff,
- Jon Davies 6/21/09
