Hail Variability in Supercell Storms and Response to Environmental Variables

Hail has preferred formation and fallout regions in supercell storms, and can be inferred using polarimetric radar variables such as reflectivity at horizontal polarization (Z_H) and differential reflectivity (Z_DR).  Signature areal extent of hail varies throughout the supercell life cycle and may also vary by environment, including the vertical wind and moisture profiles.  The work presented here will include an analysis of a dataset with tornadic and non-tornadic supercells within 75 km of a polarimetric Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D), where the storms are characterized by different environments.  Spatial extent of polarimetrically-inferred hail distributions will be quantified and related to environmental factors.  These factors include a subset which measure synoptic-scale variability and a subset related to the mesoscale environment such as vertical wind shear and moisture content in several layers, and hodograph shape. Findings will be related to expected hail distributions from prior observational and modeling work.