Severe storms 2015 general chatter

[Angela T]

Happy to see you guys around northern Va and DC area get a nice storm finally. Here in central Va, not so much, bust factor here.

[WEATHER53]

It looked worse than it turned out to be. Impressive towering cumulus.

[yoda]

I love late night storms

[smokeybandit]

  Wow, one of the loudest claps of thunder I've ever heard ,jeez

[StudentOfClimatology]

That last one made me jump..holy s**t.

[needbiggerboat]

Was a fun drive back to VA through this last night

 

[wxmeddler]

I noticed recently that the page I have bookmarked for the DC LMA was dead... so I did some digging around and found the new page. Looks even better than the old one..

 

http://lightning.nsstc.nasa.gov/lma/dclma/dclma.shtml

[09-10 analogy]

That last one made me jump..holy s**t.

It was louder than any thunder during the evening storm. 

 

Which in retrospect was a keeper, now that I've checked my car and see that it wasn't dented from the hail (or "hailettes."). And we didn't lose power. And what a lightning show: not only CG, but lots of branching across the sky. Kind of wish I'd driven outside the Beltway to get a better view

[09-10 analogy]

We're an underdog town. We don't do too well in the pole position.

We're like a #12 seed in the SPC tournament and last night was an upset of the #5 seed. I'd say #13 and #4, but last night wasn't a #4 seed storm, even though DC is probably more of a #13 seed.

[PrinceFrederickWx]

oh boy

 

https://twitter.com/JustinWeather/status/590308039896522752

 

I often poke fun at Berk for being a weenie but in this instance I have to defend him. That's the same cell that I saw in my neighborhood- it was moving west to east and appeared to be rotating with a "funnel" sort of descending (it was NOT on the ground though when I saw it). Now I'm not a trained spotter so I don't know how to properly determine whether something is a tornado forming or not, so take my opinion for what its worth. I don't have video or pics either, unfortunately (which is ironic because I'm always filming whether events). 

 

The rain was was already over and I was just outside chatting with people cause it was a nice breeze out, so none of us were expecting to see anything like that. I've been under tornado warnings for stuff that looked like nothing to me, whereas this had no warning and looked much scarier.

[MN Transplant]

 

I often poke fun at Berk for being a weenie but in this instance I have to defend him. That's the same cell that I saw in my neighborhood- it was moving west to east and appeared to be rotating with a "funnel" sort of descending (it was NOT on the ground though when I saw it). Now I'm not a trained spotter so I don't know how to properly determine whether something is a tornado forming or not, so take my opinion for what its worth. I don't have video or pics either, unfortunately (which is ironic because I'm always filming whether events). 

 

The rain was was already over and I was just outside chatting with people cause it was a nice breeze out, so none of us were expecting to see anything like that. I've been under tornado warnings for stuff that looked like nothing to me, whereas this had no warning and looked much scarier.

 

 

 

Now I wish I had saved some of the radar shots. 

 

If I squint really hard at the Andrews TDWR and only look at reflectivity...

[snowfan]

The video he shared on twitter shows something spinning over water for the first few seconds, but not much after that. I don't see anything in the pics he shared that would indicate there's a funnel. Looks ominous, but is there a funnel??

[RickinBaltimore]

Last night around 645 I was in downtown Baltimore heading to the main post office. Crossing Baltimore Street by the Shot Tower it started to spit rain, and by the time I opened my umbrella it started to pour down, and the wind gusted hard enough that the umbrella got ripped from my hands. Started hailing a few moments later and I'd say within 2-3 minutes it stopped just like that. 

[WxUSAF]

Waterspout video from yesterday: 

[snowfan]

Hadn't seen that video. Seems to show it better than the first video that surfaced.

[Ian]

The storm was nice.. Saw other pics of it on Twitter. Sculpted etc. Right near the bay is a typical spot for a spin up.. But the first set of pics were very likely inflow. Mets often misidentify features for whatever reason.

[yoda]

1730z Day 2 OTLK has marginal risk for severe from SPC for tomorrow for us.. meh chance for a damaging wind gust

[Scraff]

Waterspout video from yesterday:

You don't have to be trained spotter to look at that and know that's legit. Nice!!

[Kmlwx]

Well whatever happens tomorrow should come through pretty early. 4km NAM and LWX models seem to suggest it'll roll through around 17 or 18z. 

[yoda]

Well whatever happens tomorrow should come through pretty early. 4km NAM and LWX models seem to suggest it'll roll through around 17 or 18z. 

 

The 4km WRF-ARW 0900z run looks okay from 17z to 19z

 

The 0600z run of the WRF-NMM4N run looks okay as well around 18z

[yoda]

ML Lapse Rates are pretty high (7.5C/KM)... I am gathering there won't be that much of a hail threat due to lack of substantial moisture?

[Kmlwx]

ML Lapse Rates are pretty high (7.5C/KM)... I am gathering there won't be that much of a hail threat due to lack of substantial moisture?

 

Where is the freezing level? 

[yoda]

Where is the freezing level? 

 

http://beta.wxcaster.com/cgi-bin/parse_skewt_trace1.cgi?model=NAM&fcsthr=006&STATIONID=KIAD

 

8,000 feet right?

[Eskimo Joe]

Where is the freezing level? 

According to the 12z sounding from IAD it is 6686 Ft AGL.

[Kmlwx]

http://beta.wxcaster.com/cgi-bin/parse_skewt_trace1.cgi?model=NAM&fcsthr=006&STATIONID=KIAD

 

8,000 feet right?

Who knows - maybe somebody will score like half pea sized hail. 

[Eskimo Joe]

Impressive warm air advection ahead of the front.  Winds have gusted to 23 mph at our EOC weather station and the temperature has risen three degrees to 68 in the past 30 minutes.

[Kmlwx]

Impressive warm air advection ahead of the front.  Winds have gusted to 23 mph at our EOC weather station and the temperature has risen three degrees to 68 in the past 30 minutes.

Lapse rates are quite impressive as Yoda pointed out. Essentially no instability per mesoanalysis but we shall see. Radar doesn't look terribly impressive for the time being. 

[AvantHiatus]

I've already surpassed my forecast high for today, pretty sick. I think this will be the best event locally thus far, but I missed out on the Monday storms.

[MN Transplant]

DPs in the upper 30s/low 40s not helping.

[Kmlwx]

DPs in the upper 30s/low 40s not helping.

I'm ready for my pencil thin line of gusty showers!