French Coastal Mesoscale Convective Vortex

By Jesse Ferrell, Meteorologist/Community Director

11/27/2012, 9:40:32 AM

I've blogged before about MCVs (Mesoscale Convective Vortexes, tiny low pressure systems that develop in severe thunderstorm complexes), but I had never seen one on radar in Europe. This morning, Facebook lit up with examples of what I think is one, and I obtained some additional clips from Europe weather websites.

This is not to say that MCVs happen less frequently in Europe, but high-resolution radar data is harder to come by there, and I'm never monitoring it. Most of the comments on the links are in French, though if any bilingual folks would like to leave a comment below on my blog, they may be able to provide more information. The sources for the images, from top left to bottom right, are:

Sat24.com, WeatherCast via FB, Unknown (Fabrice Gillant on FB), Meteo60 via FB, Blitzortung.org via FB. A radar animation from Meteo60 is available below:

Below is a list of previous blog entries that I've done about MCVs:

Mesoscale Convective Vortex in Mississippi (06/19/07)

V-Blog: Animations Of The Texas MCS (06/20/07)

Over 10 Inches of Rain in OK, WI, Dean (08/19/07)

Cool Lake-Effect Radar Loops (02/20/08)

Another MCV in Texas (03/06/08)

Satellite, Radar Images of MCS Systems (06/03/08)

Houston: We have a Mesoscale Convective Vortex (11/13/08)

Friday Morning Snow Briefs - Weird Stuff! (11/21/08)

4-KM WRF Predicted Great Lakes MCV (06/03/10)

Lake-Effect Snow MCV on Lake Michigan (02/08/11)

MCC Leaves Trail of Destruction Through Carolinas (05/11/11)

3-D Radar, Wind Graphs from 80-MPH Phoenix Dust Storm (07/06/11)

Severe Thunderstorm Rakes D.C. Area (08/12/10)

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com

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