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”.
About Patrick
Patrick Marsh is a Ph.D. student at the University of Oklahoma's School of Meteorology. He earned a Bachelors of Science in Mathematics and Physics (cum laude) from the University of Arkansas in 2005 and a Masters of Science in Meteorology in 2007. In addition to working on his doctorate, Patrick serves as the National Severe Storms Laboratory Liaison to the Hazardous Weather Testbed where his research interests lie in working with operational forecasters, data mining, data visualization, and all things high-impact weather. For more about Patrick's work, check out his complete CV!
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