A Family Outbreak of Severe Local Storms

Book excerpt: This monograph is a case study of an outbreak of severe local storms that produced several tornadoes and extensive large hail in Oklahoma on 26 May 1963. Several authors have combined to describe the organization, structure, and evolution of these storms from a number of points of view. The storms are analyzed on four different size scales: (1) as products of their large-scale environment, (2) as members of a mesoscale system or family unit, (3) as individual evolving cells, and (4) as tornado and hail factories, with the emphasis on the tornadoes and the hailstones themselves. Data are obtained from conventional synoptic and mesosynoptic networks, visual and photographic observations, surface weather surveys, weather radars, sferics detectors, balloon tracks, radioactivity measurements in precipitation, and hailstone thin sections. Simple models are presented describing the airflow, structure and life cycle of individual severe local storms. (Author)