ON THIS DATE IN 1973:
Don Burgess, Les Lemon and Bob Davies-Jones identified the low precipitation supercell.
These supercell storms have radar characteristics that are different from classic supercells. There was a mid level mesocyclone, but no low level mesocyclone. There was no significant downdraft and no hook echo. Reflectivities on radar are lower and the storm has lower cloud tops. It was clear that it wasn’t a classic supercell from the reflectivity data.
Most LP supercells as identified by storm chasers are actually classic supercells. We saw this on April 27th in Alabama, when we mistakenly referred to the big storms that day as low precipitation supercells.
The trio would publish a paper on the storm in 1976.
