Chase July 10: III
2010.07.18
The little lightning book… after a few years of chasing we finally managed to collect enough pictures for the little book. Well, to be honest, the big lightning book is following with a bunch of other weather related books. The book is for sale through blurb or you can buy it directly from us (Peter and me). For friends this could be a lot cheaper since you don’t have to pay any shipment costs. The book is for sale for 14,95 Euro and that’s for the softcover version. Hardcover version is slighly more expensive. More info can be found here…
As Peter reported already a few days ahead, the 21 of July would be a good day for a chase. I left around 2.30 PM for Gent. Late as usual, when I arrived Peter was quite excited. Bart was already there and together they were checking out the latest radar and sat images.
Models are insofar constistent with each other, that they all produce precipitation in the late afternoon and/or evening across the Benelux and NW Germany, and some further east along the warm front as well. But some models produce only little convection. Apparently, the overall forcing for upward motion is not very large. Still there is confidence that significantly more than just one or two storms will develop. Because of the excellent kinematic and thermodynamic parameters, the storms have a significant potential to become severe, and a level 2 is issued as a consequence. The storms will likely include supercells. Storms across the Benelux and northern Germany will be capable of producing large hail and damaging gusts, and also tornadoes. The tornado risk will be largest with those cells that tap most of the helical low-level flow: those that ingest the most backed low-level winds. The storms are expected to continue throughout the evening, and new storms could even develop overnight. However, those will probably be elevated and because of low-level cooling, they will be less likely to produce severe winds or tornadoes.)
