Mesoscale and Synoptic Scale Interactions Leading to Intense Convection: The Case of 7 June 1982

Abstract

A case study is presented involving an unusually intense mesoscale convective system (MCS) which produced extensive hail and wind damage in northeast Kansas and northern Missouri, including the Kansas City metropolitan area, during the predawn hours of 7 June 1982. The study emphasizes the preconvective period and examines interactions between mesoscale processes and the synoptic scale environment that led to thunderstorm development. The initial storms formed after dark over the western High Plains, in an area characterized by relatively weak convective potential making the thunderstorm difficult to forecast. Near midnight the convection rapidly intensified into an MCS as it progressed eastward into a much more convectively unstable environment. Several meteorological scenarios that might have led to the initiation and intensification of convection are proposed and examined. These scenarios consider lower tropospheric convergence within an air mass which initially had weak convective potential, and the evolution of this air mass into one that could support moderate thunderstorms after sunset. This work, along with similar studies, illustrates the wide range of complex factors which must be considered in thunderstorm forecast decision making.