Has anyone seen an actual educated explanation of the sudden severe weather event of Wednesday, 19 July? My sister's husband is a judge for the PSC and this is what he was told by a staff metereologist person:
"it was a rare phenomena known as a 'plume', where there
is an intense pillar of hot air created by the energy of a major city, potentiated by a heat wave, and then an unusual burst of cooler air collides with it (in this case it came from the north east)...this causes wind currents to pick up first (which is what happened in St. Louis---no storms were on radar at all, but wind began forming in a
circular motion right in the city proper, so 60mph circular winds began tearing debris off things and whipping it around), then the plume of heat and wind intensified until a red hot cell of Tstorms was suddenly
formed directly over the city."
Even though I've lived here for 40 something yrs., I cannot picture St. Louis as a 'major city' capable of creating such a plume. This sounds more like something that would happen in an intense forest fire, or a nuclear bombing attack -- or like what happened in Dresden Germany in WWII. Looking forward to your comments, opinions, any links if you got 'em. Educate me!
