Lycoming and Sullivan County Tornadic supercell
01 July 1999
by
Richard H. Grumm
National Weather Service State College PA 16803
Introduction:
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A supercell thunderstorm moved across northern central Pennsylvania during the evening hours of 01 July 1999. This storm produced wind damage with evidence of a tornado in extreme northeastern Lycoming County and in northwestern Sullivan County.
This storm spun up a tornado and produced most of its damage upon entering valley locations. The
maximum VIL (61) was reached at 2302 UTC in Lycoming County over the Rose Valley. The storm reflectivity and velocity data showed a well-developed supercell with a strong rear flank downdraft at this time. The SRM with the tornado vortex and the reflectivity are shown in Figure 1.
The velocity data showed a strong cyclonic rotation with this supercell storm. Cross sections through the storm showed a strong updraft with the maximum outbound velocity just below 20kft in the storm as shown in
Figure 2.
The storm became tornadic again as it moved over northwestern Sullivan County, again in valley locations as shown in
Figure 3.
The base velocity data showed how the meso with this storm was stronger aloft and lowered to the bottom of the storm during the time the tornado was reported. This downward evolution is shown
in Figure 4. During the event, the forecasters noted several elevated mesocyclones with this storm. This case, the elevated mesocyclone probably suggesting the building down to the surface of the mesocyclone.
The track of this storm is shown in
Figure 5. The red arrow points to Rose Valley.
During this event, the VIL product showed the maximum values displaced to the north and west of the strongest reflectivity cores. This is probably the result of how the algorithm uses the finer scale reflectivity data to produce the coarser scale depiction of the VIL data. This is shown in
Figure 6.
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