An official website of the United States government
Abstract As a follow-on to a previous study on secondary eyewall formation (SEF) in a simulation of Hurricane Matthew (2016), this study investigates the emergence and maintenance of an asymmetric rainband updraft region that leads to an SEF event. Under moderate deep-layer environmental wind shear, the storm develops a quasi-stationary rainband complex with intense, persistent updrafts in its left-of-shear, downwind end. Using a budget of equivalent potential temperature θ E , it is demonstrated that the maintenance of the left-of-shear updraft is aided by a mesoscale cold pool induced by rainband stratiform cooling which interacts with the storm’s moist envelope of high- θ E air. An extended period of destabilization occurs through differential horizontal advection of θ E in the boundary layer, which continuously replenishes the moist instability that would otherwise be depleted by the updrafts. The initial lifting of the updraft is found to be the result of buoyancy advection resulting from the density contrast between the surface cold pool and the inner-core high- θ E air. A potential vorticity (PV) budget analysis shows that these left-of-shear updrafts generate low- to midlevel PV through diabatic heating and boundary layer processes, which shapes the local PV enhancement and propagates cyclonically downwind. Meanwhile, in the mid- to upper levels, eddy PV flux convergence and PV generation continue to occur in the stratiform precipitation extending downwind into the upshear quadrants, which substantially increases the azimuthal mean PV at the radius of the developing secondary eyewall and marks the occurrence of the axisymmetrization process.
more »
« less
Impact of Stratiform Rainband Heating on the Tropical Cyclone Wind Field in Idealized Simulations
Abstract Using idealized simulations, we examine the storm-scale wind field response of a dry, hurricane-like vortex to prescribed stratiform heating profiles that mimic tropical cyclone (TC) spiral rainbands. These profiles were stationary with respect to the storm center to represent the diabatic forcing imposed by a quasi-stationary rainband complex. The first profile was typical of stratiform precipitation with heating above and cooling below the melting level. The vortex response included a mesoscale descending inflow and a midlevel tangential jet, consistent with previous studies. An additional response was an inward-spiraling low-level updraft radially inside the rainband heating. The second profile was a modified stratiform heating structure derived from observations and consisted of a diagonal dipole of heating and cooling. The same features were found with stronger magnitudes and larger vertical extents. The dynamics and implications of the forced low-level updraft were examined. This updraft was driven by buoyancy advection because of the stratiform-induced low-level cold pool. The stationary nature of the rainband diabatic forcing played an important role in modulating the required temperature and pressure anomalies to sustain this updraft. Simulations with moisture and full microphysics confirmed that this low-level updraft response was robust and capable of triggering sustained deep convection that could further impact the storm evolution, including having a potential role in secondary eyewall formation.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1810869
- PAR ID:
- 10181649
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences
- Volume:
- 76
- Issue:
- 8
- ISSN:
- 0022-4928
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 2443 to 2462
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Abstract Idealized numerical simulations of Mesoscale Convective Systems (MCSs) over a range of instabilities and shears were conducted to examine low-frequency gravity waves generated during initial and mature stages of convection. In all simulations, at initial updraft development a first-order wave was generated by heating extending the depth of the troposphere. Additional first-order wave modes were generated each time the convective updraft reintensified. Each of these waves stabilized the environment in advance of the system. As precipitation descended below cloud base, and as a stratiform precipitation region developed, second-order wave modes were generated by cooling extending from the mid-levels to the surface. These waves destabilized the environment ahead of the system but weakened the 0-5 km shear. Third-order wave modes could be generated by mid-level cooling caused by rear inflow intensification; these wave modes cooled the mid-levels destabilizing the environment. The developing stage of each MCS was characterized by a cyclical process: developing updraft, generation of n = 1 wave, increase in precipitation, generation of n = 2 wave, and subsequent environmental destabilization reinvigorating the updraft. After rearward expansion of the stratiform region, the MCSs entered their mature stage and the method of updraft reinvigoration shifted to absorbing discrete convective cells produced in advance of each system. Higher-order wave modes destabilized the environment making it more favorable to development of these cells and maintenance of the MCS. As initial simulation shear or instability increased, the transition from cyclical wave/updraft development to discrete cell/updraft development occurred more quickly.more » « less
-
Abstract The dynamics of an asymmetric rainband complex leading into secondary eyewall formation (SEF) are examined in a simulation of Hurricane Matthew (2016), with particular focus on the tangential wind field evolution. Prior to SEF, the storm experiences an axisymmetric broadening of the tangential wind field as a stationary rainband complex in the downshear quadrants intensifies. The axisymmetric acceleration pattern that causes this broadening is an inward-descending structure of positive acceleration nearly 100 km wide in radial extent and maximizes in the low levels near 50 km radius. Vertical advection from convective updrafts in the downshear-right quadrant largely contributes to the low-level acceleration maximum, while the broader inward-descending pattern is due to horizontal advection within stratiform precipitation in the downshear-left quadrant. This broad slantwise pattern of positive acceleration is due to a mesoscale descending inflow (MDI) that is driven by midlevel cooling within the stratiform regions and draws absolute angular momentum inward. The MDI is further revealed by examining the irrotational component of the radial velocity, which shows the MDI extending downwind into the upshear-left quadrant. Here, the MDI connects with the boundary layer, where new convective updrafts are triggered along its inner edge; these new upshear-left updrafts are found to be important to the subsequent axisymmetrization of the low-level tangential wind maximum within the incipient secondary eyewall.more » « less
-
Abstract Supercell thunderstorms develop low-level rotation via tilting of environmental horizontal vorticity by the updraft. This rotation induces dynamic lifting that can stretch near-surface vertical vorticity into a tornado. Low-level updraft rotation is generally thought to scale with 0–500 m storm-relative helicity (SRH): the combination of storm-relative flow, , , and (where is the angle between and ). It is unclear how much influence each component of SRH has in intensifying the low-level mesocyclone. This study surveys these three components using self-organizing maps (SOMs) to distill 15,906 proximity soundings for observed right-moving supercells. Statistical analyses reveal the component most highly correlated to SRH and to streamwise vorticity in the observed profiles is . Furthermore, and are themselves highly correlated due to their shared dependence on the hodograph length. The representative profiles produced by the SOMs were combined with a common thermodynamic profile to initialize quasi-realistic supercells in a cloud model. The simulations reveal that, across a range of real-world profiles, intense low-level mesocyclones are most closely linked to and , while the angle between them appears to be mostly inconsequential.more » « less
-
Abstract This case study analyzes a tornadic supercell observed in northeast Louisiana as part of the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment Southeast (VORTEX-SE) on 6–7 April 2018. One mobile research radar (SR1-P), one WSR-88D equivalent (KULM), and two airborne radars (TAFT and TFOR) have sampled the storm at close proximity for ∼70 min through its mature phase, tornadogenesis at 2340 UTC, and dissipation and subsequent ingestion into a developing MCS segment. The 4D wind field and reflectivity from up to four Doppler analyses, combined with 4D diabatic Lagrangian analysis (DLA) retrievals, has enabled kinematic and thermodynamic analysis of storm-scale boundaries leading up to, during, and after the dissipation of the NWS-surveyed EF0 tornado. The kinematic and thermodynamic analyses reveal a transient current of low-level streamwise vorticity leading into the low-level supercell updraft, appearing similar to the streamwise vorticity current (SVC) that has been identified in supercell simulations and previously observed only kinematically. Vorticity dynamical calculations demonstrate that both baroclinity and horizontal stretching play significant roles in the generation and amplification of streamwise vorticity associated with this SVC. While the SVC does not directly feed streamwise vorticity to the tornado–cyclone, its development coincides with tornadogenesis and an intensification of the supercell’s main low-level updraft, although a causal relationship is unclear. Although the mesoscale environment is not high-shear/low-CAPE (HSLC), the updraft of the analyzed supercell shares some similarities to past observations and simulations of HSLC storms in the Southeast United States, most notably a pulse-like updraft that is maximized in the low- to midlevels of the storm. Significance StatementThe purpose of this study is to analyze the airflow and thermodynamics of a highly observed tornado-producing supercell. While computer simulations can provide us with highly detailed looks at the complicated evolution of supercells, it is rare, due to the difficulty of data collection, to collect enough data to perform a highly detailed analysis on a particular supercell, especially in the Southeast United States. We identified a “current” of vorticity—rotating wind—that develops at the intersection of the supercell’s rain-cooled outflow and warm inflow, similar to previous simulations. This vorticity current develops and feeds the storm’s updraft as its tornado develops and the storm intensifies, although it does not directly enter the tornado.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1175/JAS-D-18-0335.1
