Great example of downward transport of horizontal momentum in generating severe downburst winds- today over southern West Virginia. A cluster of intense convective storms developed over southern West Virginia near Charleston around mid-afternoon and then tracked eastward producing severe downburst wind damage in the New River Valley near Fayetteville, WV between 2000 and 2011 UTC 29 April 2026. As shown in Figure 1 below, GOES and RAP model soundings at 2000 UTC captured strong convective instability with a prominent mid-tropospheric dry air layer- source of 45-50 knot winds in the downdraft initiation layer that were transported to the surface in the strong thunderstorms.
Figure 1: Composite of OCTANE MESOANYWHERE day cloud phase and LightningCast lightning probability at 2016 UTC 29 April 2026 (top); comparison of RAP model and GOES soundings over southern West Virginia at 2000 UTC 29 April 2026 (bottom).
-StormRangerWX
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