Day 67: Oklahoma Tornado Environment
The image above was taken approximately the same time a tornado was hitting Hammon, OK. The tornado occurred with the convection associated with the brighter colors in far western Oklahoma. It was a classic cold core setup, meaning a lot of instability was generated along the eastern edge of the cold-pool aloft associated with the mid-level low. It so happened that the mid-to-upper level jet streak (cyan color fill below) associated with the mid-level low was positioned such that an area of large scale lift was juxtaposed over the mid-level cold pool. These two factors, combined with surface convergence along subtle surface boundaries evident on KFDR radar (not attached) enabled thunderstorms to develop in an environment with a lot of environmental vorticity. At least one thunderstorm this afternoon was able to tap into this environmental vorticity and produce several tornadoes.
Storm season is officially “here”.
