Hail Storms of Feb 3, 2006
During the afternoon of Feb 3, 2006, a very potent
upper level system moved through the region along with a strong
cold front. Usually before severe weather events, the area is
quite warm and humid. Not this time, this event was a bit different.
Temperatures did warm up to the upper 60s and lower 70s ahead
of the front, but area dew points only remained in the mid to
upper 50s. Typically we see dew points well into the 60s for
severe weather events. What we had instead of "high"
moisture was very steep lapse rates! This is just how fast the
air temperature cools off with height. Typically we cool at
roughly 6 C per 1000 m. However on this day, we cooled at around
8 C per 1000 m. This set the stage for a rather unstable atmosphere
and all we needed was something to get it going. Well, the strong
cold front and potent upper level system was more than enough.
The storms developed over northern Louisiana shortly
after noon and quickly became severe as they moved in an easterly
direction. There were 3 main storms during this event. Due to
the instability present and the amount of wind shear, these
thunderstorms became supercell storms. These storms stayed intact
as they moved just about across the entire state of MS. These
supercells were very efficient hail producers. The southern
of the two storms produced large swaths of quarter to golfball
sized hail. These large hailstones damaged many cars, roofs
and even punched holes in siding. By late afternoon, as the
storms moved into eastern MS, the hail was still falling, but
was generally smaller in size and began to mainly range from
dime to nickel sized.
Below are some radar images of the storms which
depict some impressive signatures and just how potent these
storms were.
The following 2 images show the large supercell
storm just before it reached St. Joseph, LA. This storm had
been producing golfball sized hail just to the west and continued
to do so all the way into Central MS. The red outline indicates
the approximate swath of golfball sized hail.
Full 4 Panel
View of Storm
This next image is of another supercell storm
which moved across northern Warren and Hinds county, as well
as southern Madison county. Like the previous storm, this supercell
also produce a large swath of golfball sized hail. The image
below points out an interesting radar artifact! It is called
a "Three Body Scatter Spike" It gets this name from
the amount of time the radar beam is bounced off objects before
it gets back to the radar. In simple terms it goes something
like this: radar beam hits the large hail (1), then is reflected
to the ground, hits the ground (2) and reflected back into the
storm when it hits the large hail again (3) and finally goes
back to the radar. Those are the (3) scatters. What we see as
a result is a "weakened" signal back to the radar
and the time lag from its trip to the ground. This time lag
is why the radar image has the "spike" sticking out
of the back of the storm. These "hail spikes" only
occur with large hail, typically 1 inch or larger.
Full
4 Panel View of Storm
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