4/18/09 DISC: SW Kansas cold core tornadoes

[Jon Davies]

I put together a brief case study about the setting for yesterday's cold core tornadoes with the Kalvesta cell in SW Kansas:

http://davieswx.blogspot.com (http://davieswx.blogspot.com/)

There's been quite a few "cold core" setups come through the Plains so far this year, but few have produced tornadoes, and none as prolific or as well- photographed as yesterday's isolated cell event that went on for around 90 minutes.

Jon Davies

[Rick Schmidt]

Great analysis, Jon! I always enjoy reading about your case studies. I have learned a lot in the last few years going over your material, and I am actually starting to understand some of it! Thanks!

[edward oneal]

Good study of what I was witnessing yesterday, helps in understanding what was going on with this storm.

[Tony Perkins]

Here's an animation (http://antcam.f5chaser.com/bestof/2009-04-18/index.html) showing a large number of spotter network chasers making a beeline for the storm.

Warning: Bandwidth and browser resource intensive

[Ian Miller]

Nice one Jon, and well put together,keep up the good work

[Jon Davies]

Appreciate the comments.

Ed, nice photos and very helpful, including giving direction of view and showing some of the storm structure. Thanks for posting those on Saturday.

Jon Davies

[Adam Lucio]

Awesome write up Jon, Im actually beginning to start to understand these cold core setups better. I never paid much attention to them before. It pulled a fast one on all of us thats for sure as very few were out there, I dont think anyone expected them to go up that soon.

Just goes to show what an area of max vorticity can do.

That animation is just hilarious.

[edward oneal]

Jon thank you and to all the others that have commented on the pictures from the 18th. Glad to have been able to get there and document it for all to see.