Topic: mothership/supercells

[Mike]

I would like to know more about mothership supercell storms.  I know that there are many forum members who have seen these both here in Australia and especially in the USA.

I would like to know if there is anything in particular that differs from the ones we get in Aust and those that form in the USA as far as structure, rotation, strength, longevity?

 Are these motherships one extremely large storm that relatively move slowly and how long does it take for the storm to take the bell shape? Are these storms an example of a very powerful/dangerous storm? I understand that tornadoes form from supercells such as these so I won't go there, but I'm keen to find out more about supercells as they are very rare where i live.

Would classing them as the 'ultimate storms'  (leaving out hurricanes etcetera) as far as their sheer size. mass and what they produce?  Would it be wrong to classify them as A typical storms or are they but on a much, much greater scale?

The more info on these the better.  Personal accounts most appreciated!

Mike

[Mike]

If someone could reply to this as i'm getting asked a lot of questions at work re what i'm dong on the forum all day instead of working.......personally I can't see what the problem is!

[Jimmy Deguara]

Mike,

"Motherships" is a slang term for a particular structure of supercell in the HP end of the spectrum. It is referred as such being that it looks like a "mothership". They are obviously very spectacular and often exhibit a step structure.







When you talk about HP supercells, these are often very large supercells since they have large precipitation cores. LP and classic supercells may have a large updraft and mesocyclone, but much smaller core.

Please note that in all this discussion, supercells storms with persistent rotating updraft are spread along a spectrum - wet HP at one end and dry LP on the other. All supercells should fit within these characteristics on such a scale.

I would not make any connection to hurricanes (tropical cyclones and typhoons) - we are talking a different scale tens of kilometres with supercells compared to 100 kilometres with tropical cyclones.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara