July 16 2018

We were expecting a few storms to erupt today in central Maryland and they did. In fact the radar simulation I showed this morning did a pretty good job identifying this, even though the timing was off by a few hours.  Compare all the images and loops below.

Outflow Boundary

When a thunderstorm builds up enough, it can send out a push of cooler air in one or many directions. This is like a mini cool front that you may notice with a refreshing breeze on the outer edges of a storm.  This is often seen on Doppler Radar as an arc moving away and spreading out.  This was seen with the Baltimore storm cell around 4 PM

 

This afternoon we have seen two cluster of storms nearly 1 Nour later.

  1. Just south of Baltimore
  2. Metro Washington DC

This snapshot of Doppler Radar showed both outflow boundaries interacting with each other right around the Howard and Montgomery County border.

 

Over the following hour, the storm cluster had explosive development. The air was forced to lift from the opposing boundaries and led to the large thunderstorm complex. Plenty of lightning strikes spread across southern Carrol County and into northern Anne Arundel County.

 

Doppler Radar Animation

Watch this loop showing how this played out. I made sure to slow it down so you can study it closer. The prevailing upper level winds carried eventually carried the storm clusters to the north and northeast.

 

 

Compare to the Radar Simulation I showed this morning

The timing was off by a few hours

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