Photos from my mini-storm chasing here in Panama City, during the Tocumen Supercell Storm. I am a meteorology student that loves extreme weather, I take photos and videos of storms that occur nearby. There are some photos of the Tocumen supercell, we here in "24 de Diciembre" happened to receive a direct hit by the meso.
Supercells are a rare event in the tropics, but they do occur occasionally, like this one. May be because of El Niño?
Wall cloud and Possible funnel.
The meso
Border of the Meso
Wall-cloud
Some reflectivity images of the cell from the Panama Canal radar, recorded by me right before a lightning struck causing a power outage, making me lose my internet connection:(. It is a sorrow I did not get to record the very moment when the meso hit us (what happened 20 minutes later). Notice how the cell developed in the very last frame, thing I attributed to the excess of insolation of the tocumen-area prairie-like terrain after a really sunny morning. When the storm made contact with the over-heated ground it just exploded
After the lightning a strong rain start and I lost all my visibility. I thought the whole thing disippated. My surprise was, 20 minutes after the strong rain started, hail started to pour down and a really violent windstorm started (horizontal rain, direct hit by the meso!). Things went scary so I prefered to go to the central room of the house.
We dont have a NEXRAD over here, but the hook echo was very pronounced and there could have been a really cool velocity couplet I think.
Gusts of 46 KT and tennis-ball-sized hail caused some damage in some areas, many fallen trees as result of strong winds. My house only suffered minor damages, some little plants smashed down by the hail, nothing relevant.
The cell, about an hour after it passed over me:
Coverage by the media:
http://www.kwcontinente.com/index.php?o ... 5&Itemid=1
http://mensual.prensa.com/mensual/conte ... 283150.asp
http://mensual.prensa.com/mensual/conte ... 182510.asp
http://www.critica.com.pa/archivo/07122009/port03.html
I dont know if SINAPROC even knew a supercell had occured. They went on TV saying things like "The hail was caused by Global Warming",
edit: Correcting my position after checking with google maps
