The Statistical Lifecycle of a Supercell Storm

Supercell storms are well-recognized for their disproportionate impacts on severe weather, especially many of the most impactful events. Many past studies focus on case studies of high-impact supercell storms. However, in this study, we use a recently created database of thousands of objectively identified supercell storms to evaluate their statistical severe potential and related radar-observed three-dimensional characteristics as a function of storm lifetime. Namely, the focus of the analysis is on the normalized lifecycle of long-lived supercell storms that have been objectively tracked from the radar observations. Right-moving and left-moving supercells are analyzed separately and factors such as population density are considered for interpretation of the results. All radar data are sourced from the operational NEXRAD WSR-88D network in the United States, with severe reports sourced from NOAA’s Severe Event Database and matched to the objectively tracked storms.