Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Tornadic Storm in South-Central Kansas


The above image shows a tornadic thunderstorm in southcentral Kansas just a few moments ago.  The storm was centered Northeast of Winfield and West of Burden.  Note the "classic" hook echo configuration to the Northeast of Winfield.  Numerous funnel clouds and at least brief tornado touch-downs have been reported with this storm so far.

The above image shows "reflectivity" from the radar, in other words, rain and hail being reflected back by the radar beam.  The image below shows the same radar but in "velocity" mode, which shows the wind movement toward and away from the radar.


Note the same storm Northeast of Winfield.  The reds and yellows show wind blowing away from the radar (located in the upper left corner of the image) while the greens and blues show wind blowing toward the same radar site.  This indicates strong rotation, as annotated by the arrows in the image below:

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