Severe Thunderstorm Life Cycles in New York State

WSR-88D radar data from 2008 – 2017 are used to investigate severe storm life cycles in New York State (NYS). Attempts are made to find localized regions of preferred severe storm convective initiation (CI) and occurrence, and a comparison of tornadic and non-tornadic severe thunderstorms is completed to determine any differences in timing or location of CI, geographical occurrence, storm intensification (SI), and storm dissipation between the two groups of cases. The set of non-tornadic thunderstorms are identified using hail reports of at least 1” in diameter; owing to the relatively large number of non-tornadic storms in NYS compared to tornadic storms, the years of non-tornadic storms investigated are 2015 – 2017. Time and location of CI and dissipation of the severe storms of interest are identified using a 35 dBZ threshold. Radar analyses of each case, in combination with Storm Data reports, are used to identify time and location of tornado touchdown and dissipation. The development and cessation of hail is studied using Storm Data and the hydrometeor classification algorithm. The use of satellite data is planned to analyze the pre-CI cumulus development and progression. The overall goals of this research are to analyze observed severe weather events in NYS to determine if there are preferred areas for: i) severe storm CI, ii) the transition of thunderstorms from non-severe to severe, and iii) storm dissipation. A subsequent objective to this research is to better understand the role of terrain and the land/marine interface on severe convection in NYS.