A splitting storm is a thunderstorm that splits into two separate storms with divergent paths. One storm is referred to as the left mover, and one is referred to as the right mover. In the northern hemisphere, the left mover is more likely to weaken and dissipate, but on rare occasions will intensify into a very severe and anticyclonically (clockwise) rotating supercell thunderstorm. The right moving storm has the highest potential of becoming a severe thunderstorm or a supercell. This type of storm development is most likely to occur in conditions of moderate to high instability, with strong unidirectional wind shear.
Famous quotes containing the words splitting and/or storm:
“I had an old axe which nobody claimed, with which by spells in winter days, on the sunny side of the house, I played about the stumps which I had got out of my bean-field. As my driver prophesied when I was plowing, they warmed me twice,—once while I was splitting them, and again when they were on the fire, so that no fuel could give out more heat. As for the axe,... if it was dull, it was at least hung true.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The victors and the vanquished then the storm it tossed and tore,
As hard they strove, those worn-out men, upon that surly shore;
Dead Nelson and his half-dead crew, his foes from near and far,
Were rolled together on the deep that night at Trafalgar!”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)