Alert archive / Colorado / Mesoscale Discussions in 2003

Mesoscale Discussion 2180

August 18, 200313 counties in Colorado; Kimball County, Nebraska

The Storm Prediction Center issued this mesoscale discussion at Aug 18, 2003, 1:40 PM MDT for 13 counties in Colorado; Kimball County, Nebraska. It was in force for 2 hr.

The area

The outline as issued.

The facts

Issued: Aug 18, 2003, 1:40 PM MDT (19:40 UTC)
Expired: Aug 18, 2003, 3:45 PM MDT
In force: 2 hr
Issued by: the Storm Prediction Center

Counties Adams County, CO, Arapahoe County, CO, Cheyenne County, CO, Denver County, CO, El Paso County, CO, Elbert County, CO, Kit Carson County, CO, Lincoln County, CO, Logan County, CO, Morgan County, CO, Washington County, CO, Weld County, CO, Yuma County, CO, Kimball County, NE

The radar

The Denver radar (KFTG), 57 km from the middle of the area, began a volume at 19:42 UTC, the scan nearest the moment this went out.

Open the radar archive at this moment

The archived warnings, watches and discussions in force at that minute are drawn over the scan, this one among them.

The watches that followed

Watches SPC issued over any of the same counties within four hours of this discussion.

Severe Thunderstorm Watch 869Aug 18, 1:55 PM MDT

The nearest sounding before it

Denver, CO (KDNR), launched 12:00Z, 7.7 hours before the alert went out and 63 km from the middle of its area. This is the routine balloon launch nearest before it, the air the forecaster had in hand, not a measurement taken for the alert.

Skew-T log-p

Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed.

Hodograph

The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km.

Mixed-layer CAPE: 2 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -132 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 1390 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 19 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: -33 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 30 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 0.0
Supercell composite: -0.0

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The text

As transmitted, in the capitals the NWS used until 2016.

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <title>Service Notice</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="index.css">
</head>
<body>
  <main class="wrap">
    <section class="card" role="status" aria-live="polite">
      <div class="status" id="status">Temporary Notice</div>
      <h1 id="headline">This service is currently unavailable.</h1>
      <p id="message1">
        The site you requested is temporarily down for maintenance or an unexpected outage.
      </p>
      <p id="message2">
        Please try again in a few minutes.
      </p>
      <p class="small" id="detail">
        If you are an administrator, restore upstream service and remove the redirect/fallback rule when normal operations resume.
      </p>
    </section>
  </main>
  <script src="index.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

SPC that day

Everything else SPC issued on the same UTC day.

Issued	Product	Office	Counties	Lasted
Aug 18, 1:55 PM MDT	Severe Thunderstorm Watch	SPC	Adams, Arapahoe, Bent, Boulder, Broomfield, Cheyenne and 25 more	5 hr
Aug 18, 5:13 PM MDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Cheyenne, Kit Carson	2 hr
Aug 18, 12:24 PM MDT	Mesoscale Discussion	SPC	Adams, Boone, Buffalo, Butler, Clay, Colfax and 28 more	2 hr
Aug 18, 1:05 PM MDT	Severe Thunderstorm Watch	SPC	Adams, Antelope, Boone, Burt, Butler, Cass and 37 more	5 hr

Nearby

Mesoscale Discussions in Colorado, 2003 Mesoscale Discussions in Nebraska, 2003 Every mesoscale discussion in 2003

Sources

The product and its follow-ups from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service and Storm Prediction Center text; the sounding from the Mesonet's radiosonde archive; radar from the NEXRAD Level II archive.