Visible satellite from February 13, 2000
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The first significant severe weather outbreak of 2000 occurred on the afternoon of February 13 in the southeast US. Severe (and tornadic) thunderstorms covered LA, AR, MS, AL, TN, GA, and FL... prompting simultaneous tornado watches that covered over 230 counties. Numerous flash flood, severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings were also issued. (Clicking on the image will take you to a separate webpage about this storm). Image courtesy of NASA/GHCC. |
Radar loop from January 25, 2000
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A major winter storm crippled the Atlantic seaboard, from Georgia to New England, on January 24-26, 2000. Heavy freezing rain and snowfalls reaching 23" in some locations were combined with high winds and sub-zero wind chills to create a classic severe blizzard, commonly known as a Nor'easter. The Low at the center of the storm reached a minimum pressure of 979mb on the morning of Jan 25th. (Clicking on the image will start the animation... to view the full-res version of the mosaic you see here, right-click and "View Image"). Image courtesy of Intellicast, animation courtesy of WeatherTAP. |
Infrared satellite from April 24, 1999
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This image is from GOES 8 Channel 4 (IR, ~10.7 microns) and was 'taken' on April 24, 1999 at 1945Z. The brightness temperature scale is listed at the bottom of the image... all temps are in deg C. Notice the anomalous warm regions surrounded by colder temps over east-central Arkansas. These are overshooting tops. They are warmer because the cloud penetrated the tropopause and entered the stratosphere where the lapse rate is such that temperatures increase with altitude. Overshooting tops occur in very strong thunderstorms with intense updrafts. Image courtesy of the RAMM Team at CIRA. |
Radar (base refl) loop from April 24, 1999
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This base reflectivity loop over southern South Carolina and northern Georgia is from April 24, 1999 and spans 1653 to 1917 EST. The storm moving off the SC coast at the beginning of the loop created an immense outflow boundary as it dissipated. The outflow boundary propagated westward very rapidly, and eventually encountered an unstable environment to the west, spawning a line of strong thunderstorms SSW of Augusta, GA. Also notice the supercell moving between Columbia and Augusta (formed near Anderson). This cell had reflectivities of 70dBz+ for several hours, and produced large hail and tornadoes. Images courtesy of InterRAD. |
Witchita Radar from October 4, 1998
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Two frames (20 minutes apart unfortunately) comparing the base reflectivity to the storm relative velocity of an early October supercell over northern Oklahoma (southern tip of Woods County). One can clearly see the large symmetric mesocyclone embedded in the supercell by noticing the rapid change in direction of radial winds relative to the radar site (green is towards site, red is away from site). The storms in Kansas were also severe, but showed little or no rotation. Images courtesy of Intellicast. |
