THE GREAT TEXAS SUPER CELL

The official start of the Atlantic hurricane season is just over a month away, but an outrageous looking super cell thunderstorm over central Texas last night was about as scary looking on satellite imagery as any tropical system you could imagine. 



This thing blew up as big as any tropical storm or hurricane we typically see. The mega cold cloud tops represented by the white, gray and black, is where intense straight line winds were produced, that in some instances are more than capable of reaching hurricane strength. There were plenty of tornadoes spinning up in this thing as well. The updrafts were so powerful in this mega super cell that it produced hail the size as softballs near Hondo, TX, just west of San Antonio.

photo courtesy of @TheRealDoctorT

This incredible super cell had a reach from near Del Rio at the southern Texas border, to near Texarkana at the northern Texas border. That's nearly 600 miles. That's a big storm. A lot of tropical systems are in the 300-400 mile range for the most part, some bigger, some smaller, and the weather usually isn't of much significance the further out from the centers you get. In this super cell, hail was produced in Haslet, TX, north of Fort Worth at the same time it was dropping softballs in Hondo. That's about a 300 mile stretch!

Super cell thunderstorms that produce hail, tornadoes and high winds are a common occurence, of course, but they're usually limited in size to a few dozen miles or so. You don't see 300-600 mile monsters like this very much.

A pretty impressive sight to see when you're looking at it from above. Probably still impressive, but a whole lot more scary when you're underneath it and softball sized chunks of ice are falling from the sky.

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