MESOSCALE STORM DEVELOPMENT
Satellite imagery makes the interaction between the three storms clear. When the middle cell began to 'rain-out', small arc cloud lines appeared on both its north and south sides -- visual indication of rain-stabilized air rushing out to the north and south. Shortly after these short line segments merged with neighboring storms we find important interactions occurring. First, a small tornado was spotted beneath the northern cell near Linneus, Missouri as the outflow surge entered that storm's southern flank. Second, the overshooting dome of the southern storm grew dramatically, with substantially colder temperatures developing on 10.7 um infrared imagery. This occurred as the outflow surge entered its northern side.
Study the plot of minimum storm top temperatures for the Moberly storm as sensed by both the 6.7 um and the 10.7 um channels. The data indicate significant growth of the storm top following the interaction. Note that the 6.7 um values are nearly always colder than the 10.7 um. We interpret this to mean that there was probably a significant layer of moisture above the anvil. There may even have been Pileus caps on the building towers, but no spotter reports were available to confirm this possibility.