Servicio de Técnicas de Análisis y Predicción, STAP, Instituto Nacional de Meteorología (INM). Madrid - Spain
Normally, well-organised convective systems develop in the western Mediterranean area in fall. They generate many heavy rain events and flash floods. Occasionally, severe weather phenomena occur at the same area and season. On the night of 10 October 2001, several thunderstorms developed over Murcia and Alicante provinces (SE of the Iberian peninsula). One of them grew explosively; it intensified as it moved northeast. This thunderstorm began showing supercell characteristics before midnight producing large hail (baseball-like sizes). The location, in which this supercell developed and the path it took, was a favoured area for convective development and high values of storm relative helicity, SRH. The INM-Murcia radar data show that thunderstorm exhibited typical supercell characteristics: well-defined and long-lived mesovortex, hook echoes patterns, echoes tilting, etc. This note provides a brief review at the synoptic and mesoscale conditions of the 10 October supercell. The INM-Murcia radar information is analysed in detail: Doppler and conventional data. Radar-based objective outputs, using three-dimensional conventional reflectivity data, are showed and discussed. These last products are used operationally in our regional forecasting and surveillance centres.