- 1Hail Suppression Agency, Technical and Operational Service, Sofia, Bulgaria (dimitrova_tsvetelina@abv.bg)
- 2Independent Researcher, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
- 3Department of Meteorology and Geophysics, Faculty of Physics, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"
The movement of convective storms is directly dependent on the direction and speed of their evolution. Radar, aircraft, and satellite studies have established that this is due to merging of inflow feeder clouds (FCs). FCs are responsible for the intensification of the thunderstorms. One of the key hail suppression concepts is the early rainout of feeder clouds. Therefore, accurately determining the location of FCs within the convective storm system is a priority for hail suppression operations.
Convective storm development can be visualized as a continuous process of formation, growth, dissipation, merging, or splitting. By placing the origin of a Lagrangian coordinate system at the center of a convective cell, the internal dynamics of the convective storm and the overall convective system can be tracked.
To determine the location of FCs, the following vectors are used: the mean wind vector (Vc) – wind at 600 hPa level, the storm motion vector (Vs), and the evolution vector (Ve) – which indicates the direction and speed of merging of the main convective cell and FCs, defined as vector difference between Vs and Vc.
High-resolution visible (HRV) satellite data were used to verify the identified FCs locations.
Convective storms occurring on June 3 and 12, 2024, were analyzed. The observed convection included multicellular storms, with a supercell developing on June 12. Radar data and evolution vectors, calculated using the Lagrangian method, were used to assess storm evolution and FCs positioning.
The study showed that:
- The calculated locations of FCs based on the evolution vectors closely match the visual feeder cloud structures observed in satellite imagery.
- The orientation of the feeder clouds can be estimated by using radar data.
- In both multicell and supercell storms, the orientation of most feeder cloud lines was consistent, suggesting their potential use as predictors for subsequent severe storm development.
How to cite: Dimitrova, T., Livshits, E., Pencheva, V., Georgiev, S., and Bonchev, D.: Determining the location of feeder clouds in a convective storm system based on radar observations, 12th European Conference on Severe Storms, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 17–21 Nov 2025, ECSS2025-94, https://doi.org/10.5194/ecss2025-94, 2025.
