Super Tuesday storm variability

Several supercells during the Super Tuesday outbreak of 5-6 February 2008 passed within at least 100 km of WSR-88D radars so that a detailed analysis of storms within a tornado outbreak can be performed. This analysis includes examining the time and height varying reflectivity and rotational velocity structures of the supercells. The variability of these fields in relation to other storms in the outbreak, relative time in the outbreak and the occurrence of tornadoes (if any) is closely examined. Two of these supercells passed within 30-40 km of radar sites (KNQA and KOHX). The relative steadiness of these storms during passage, along with the large motion vector (from the southwest at 20-25 ms^-1), allowed the application of a synthetic dual-Doppler (SDD) analysis. As such, a more detailed analysis of these storms is given, including examinations of low-level circulations, updraft strength and location, as well as a complete thermodynamic retrieval that evaluates the relative magnitudes of buoyancy and vertical gradient of perturbation pressure. The performance of applying the SDD technique on supercells is also explored.->