Twin Mesocyclones
Two rotating wall clouds revealed twin low-level mesocyclones on the SW side of a classic, cyclic supercell. The broad one to the left had been rotating rapidly for nearly an hour (without producing any known tornadoes). The one on the right formed on a storm-scale occlusion triple-point NE of the original; it lasted another half-hour to 45 minutes and yielded only a funnel. That frustrating storm typified NSSL-IOT&E2 chases in 1989, and my storm intercepts as a whole for many years. This was during two notorious streaks in my storm observing career:
- 14 consecutive, well-defined low level mesocyclones observed by my NSSL crews in the spring of '89 which failed to produce a tornado, and
- 61 straight storm intercept trips of mine over a 6 year period with no tornado.
8 S Vernon TX (16 May 89) Looking WNW