"Richard Dixon" wrote:

My take on events is that it was a vigorous ana-cold front, something
I retain a keen interest in. I personally think the ana-front is
different to a squall line where the leading edge is characterised by
deep convection. The ana-front rainfall comes only from the an
approximately 2km deep leading edge, and this leading edge has been
seen to be convectively neutral. As for the swarms of tornadoes 24th
Oct 1995 is another good case.

I'd imagine that damage would come from a mixture of the strong low-
level jet ahead of the front (i.e. straight line winds), but also the
gusty winds that occur at the line convection cores and maybe from the
dry descending air behind the front that is fuelled by evaporating
precipitation.

Another notable example is Windstorm Kyrill on 18th/19th January this
year, as it moved into Europe, I was expecting it to have died given
that the pressure gradients were slackening off, but was surprised to
see that damage occurred in Eastern Germany, Czech Republic and Poland
from what looked like a common-or-garden dying extratropical cyclone.
Only on closer inspection was it clear that an ana-cold front - which
became convective and squall-line-esque formed as it crossed Eastern
Europe, causing the most damage since 1976 in these parts - for those
interested in the case study, some quite nice radar animations of the
front as it crossed Czech Republic here. What separates that from this
event is that this actually became deep convective and so winds from
higher aloft were able to be brought to the surface.

Fair enough, but the discussion heretofore was really about
the immediate response to journalists' questions.

Philip