Funnel Cloud in California, May 4, 1998

This convective day saw a very unstable airmass support thunderstorms along the west side of the Central and Southern San Joaquin Valley. While most of the cells were not considered overly threatening...one cell formed in the northwest corner of Kern County with tops in excess of 25K feet and radar reflectivity reaching 66 dBz. This storm...in a very rural area of Kern County...prompted a severe thunderstorm warning (SVR) at 1603 PDT on its slow track northward toward Kings County. A subsequent SVR was issued at 1754 PDT and threatening Corcoran in Kings County. The storm subsequently split in with the right side continuing to move toward Corcoran but diminishing in intensity while the left side continued toward Hanford. A 3rd SVR was issued at 1838 PDT as the thunderstorm threatened the Hanford-Lemoore area. Again the storm split as it approached Hanford with the right half diminishing in intensity but the left side swinging northward into Lemoore. The thunderstorm over Lemoore was noted at 1835 PDT and supported numerous cloud-to-cloud lightning discharges. Pea-size hail with gusty wind no more than 30 MPH occurred at 1902 PDT. The rain was heavy but lasting only 30 minutes with amounts close to 1/2-inch in that time period. The thunderstorm cell outflow boundary then interacted with another from the north and developed a southwest-northeast line of thunderstorms along the Kings-Fresno County Line. In all cases SVRs for the day were issed on the basis of strong reflectivity values and storm structure...including a classic weak echo region...but the storm's track was over very remote areas of the counties except at its last stages so no verification of SVR criteria was observed.