Ticker for June 4, 2008

                
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June 4, 2008       June 4, 2008       June 4, 2008       June 4, 2008




Strong Straight-Line Winds in Northern OK

A whopper of a thunderstorm trekked across Oklahoma's northern tier
of counties yesterday, delivering powerful, damaging straight-line
winds.

Station   Wind Gust       Time     Station   Wind Gust       Time
Freedom      75 mph    7:20 pm     Freedom      74 mph    7:15 pm
Newkirk      73 mph    9:30 pm     Freedom      68 mph    7:25 pm
Foraker      67 mph   10:00 pm     Newkirk      66 mph    9:20 pm
May Ranch    63 mph    7:25 pm     Freedom      63 mph    7:10 pm
Medford      59 mph    8:45 pm     May Ranch    58 mph    7:35 pm
Buffalo      57 mph    6:55 pm     Slapout      56 mph    6:05 pm
Copan        55 mph   10:20 pm     Goodwell     55 mph    4:35 pm
Kenton       54 mph    8:00 pm     Freedom      54 mph    7:30 pm
May Ranch    54 mph    7:30 pm     Burbank      53 mph    9:40 pm
Blackwell    53 mph    9:10 pm     Medford      53 mph    8:40 pm
Copan        51 mph   10:30 pm     Burbank      51 mph    9:45 pm
Newkirk      51 mph    9:40 pm     Newkirk      51 mph    9:35 pm
Foraker      50 mph   10:05 pm     Blackwell    50 mph    9:05 pm


Colliding Boundaries

Here's a picture of the pre-storm setup in the area. It should also
yield the locations of the Mesonet stations in the above list:



The storm, already mature, was still beyond the western end of the
radar scope.  But what's interesting in this graphic are the double
boundaries right over the radar site. Each of these lines, draped
southwest-to-northeast represents a boundary of some sort. The
southern one is a dry line, and the northern one is a "cold" front
(it separates 100F temps from mid-90s temps!).

Notice the very hot temps in the skinny "dry slot" between the two
boundaries! A small stripe of higher temps paints Fairview, Lahoma
and Medford.

Boundaries are important because they are focal points for storms
when the atmosphere is in the mood to produce storms.

The cold front overtook the dry line a few minutes later (and spawned
a few more storms!).