Case Studies of Elevated, Nocturnal Severe Storms

Three case studies of elevated, nocturnal severe storms will be presented. The elevated cases are smaller in extent than the typical elevated MCSs that have been widely studied. Despite their small size, the storms persisted beyond the expected life-cycle of individual cells and were responsible for damaging wind and hail.

The case studies will examine cloud resolving simulations made with the WRF-ARW core and will use high-resolution data assimilation of satellite and radar data to produce realistic initial conditions. The primary questions to be addressed in the analysis of model results are (1) what is the initiation mechanism? (2) what is the propogation mechanism? (3) what is the organizational structure that permits a relatively long lifecycle? (4) what processes allow strong winds to penetrate to the surface through the nocturnal stable layer?