Florida severe storm indicators

A detailed analysis of National Weather Service Tampa Bay Area, Ruskin, Florida WSR-88D radar and sounding data for severe weather events from1994 through 2000 provides many important correlations for severe weather recognition. The severe weather events were stratified into hail, damaging wind, tornado, and waterspout categories. In the severe hail events there were two distinct 20-25 minute pulse features. Prior to a tornado touchdown, the base of a mesocyclone drops, low level velocity and shear increases steadily, and max rotational velocity peaks . These correlations may be used by forecasters to help alert them to the possibility of a severe weather event and thus increasing the lead time in the issuance of severe weather warnings.