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Observations of the Convective Environment in Developing and Non-Developing Tropical Disturbances

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Observations of the Convective Environment in Developing and Non-Developing Tropical Disturbances QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. 137: 1–18 (2011) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/qj.000 Observations of the convective environment in developing and non-developing tropical disturbances Roger K. Smitha1and Michael T. Montgomeryb a Meteorological Institute, University of Munich, Munich, Germany b Dept. of Meteorology, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA & NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division, Miami, FL, USA. Abstract: Analyses of thermodynamic data gathered from airborne dropwindsondes released from the upper troposphere during the Pre- Depression Investigation of Cloud Systems in the Tropics (PREDICT) experiment are presented. The main focus is on two systems that finally became Hurricanes Karl and Matthew and one system that attained Tropical Storm status (Gaston), but subsequently weakened and never redeveloped during five days of monitoring. Data for all events show that the largest values of total precipitable water are collocated with the surface trough and with some high values of convective available potential energy, which coincide roughly with low values of convective inhibition. Vertical profiles of virtual potential temperature show little variability between soundings on a particular day, but the system means from day to day show a slight warming. In contrast, vertical profiles of pseudo- equivalent potential temperature, θe, show much more variability between soundings on a particular day on account of the variability in moisture. In all systems, there is a tendency for the lower troposphere to moisten, but in the system that did not develop, the middle and upper troposphere became progressively drier during the five missions. In the developing systems, the upper levels moistened. The most prominent difference between the non-developing system and the two systems that developed was the much larger reduction of θe between the surface and a height of 3 km, typically 25 K in the non-developing system, compared with only 17 K in the systems that developed. Conventional wisdom would suggest that, for this reason, the convective downdraughts would be stronger in the non-developing system and would thereby act to suppress the development. Here we invoke an alternative hypothesis that the drier mid-level air weakens the convective updraughts and thereby weakens the amplification of system relative vorticity necessary for development. Copyright c 2011 Royal Meteorological Society KEY WORDS Tropical cyclone, hurricane, typhoon, spin-up, intensification Received June 23, 2011; Revised ; Accepted 1 Introduction Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Sci- ence Foundation (NSF) to investigate tropical cycloge- nesis in the Caribbean and West Atlantic and the sub- Understanding the dynamics of tropical cyclogenesis remains one of the great unsolved problems in tropical sequent intensification of storms in these regions. While meteorology. One reason for the lack of understanding is two of the experiments1 included intensification in their undoubtedly the fact that genesis occurs over the trop- portfolio of objectives, the Pre-Depression Investigation ical oceans where conventional observational data such of Cloud Systems in the Tropics (PREDICT) experiment as radar data, radiosonde soundings and surface data are was designed exclusively to study genesis. Priority was relatively sparse. While there have been a few field exper- given to developing storms prior to their classification as iments directed at documenting cyclogenesis (Bister and tropical depressions as defined by forecasters2, even when Emanuel 1997, Ritchie and Holland 1999, Elsberry and Harr 2008) and a few serendipitous sets of measurements (Reasor et al. 2005, Houze et al. 2009), many questions remain about the processes involved and their relative 1The Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) project of importance. A recent review of work over the past few NASA and the Intensify Forecast Experiment (IFEX) of the NOAA. years is given by Montgomery and Smith (2010). 2The glossary on NOAAs Hurricane Research Divisions website uses “tropical cyclone as the generic term for a nonfrontal synoptic-scale In the late summer of 2010, a trio of field exper- low-pressure system over tropical or sub-tropical waters with organized iments was conducted by the National Aeronautics and convection (i.e. thunderstorm activity) and a definite cyclonic surface wind circulation. Notably, this definition does not invoke any wind Space Administration (NASA), National Oceanic and threshold. The same glossary defines a “tropical depression as a tropical cyclone with maximum sustained surface winds of less than 17 m s−1 (34 kt, 39 mph) and, in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific Basins, a tropical 1Correspondence to: Prof. Roger K. Smith, Meteorological Institute, storm as a tropical cyclone with surface winds between 17 m s−1 and 33 Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Theresienstr. 37, 80333 ms−1. In this study we will define genesis as the formation of a tropical Munich, Germany. E-mail: [email protected] depression and we impose no formal threshold on wind speed. Copyright c 2011 Royal Meteorological Society Prepared using qjrms3.cls [Version: 2007/01/05 v1.00] 2 R. K. SMITH AND M. T. MONTGOMERY mature storms were present nearby. The primary mea- dropwindsonde data and methods of analysis. Section 4 surement platform of PREDICT was the National Cen- presents the results of the analyses for each storms. The ter for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) GV research air- results are discussed in section 5 and the conclusions are craft, equipped with dropsondes and onboard sensors for given in section 6. meteorological variables and ice microphysics. The range and speed of the GV, and the high altitude (≈13-14 km) from which it could release dropsondes, were exploited to 2 Events discussed sample storm formation from Central America to the mid- The storms sampled by PREDICT aircraft missions are Atlantic (roughly 40◦W) operating out of St. Croix in the summarized by Montgomery et al. (2011, see their Table U.S. Virgin Islands. Some measurements were made also 1). These storms were fairly evenly split between devel- by the NASA DC8 research aircraft, which, has the capa- oping and non-developing systems. While some cases had bility to release dropsondes from moderately high in the a high potential for genesis from the time of the first troposphere (≈10-11 km). GV flight into them and subsequently developed, one sys- The PREDICT field experiment aimed to gather data tem departed from this pattern. Gaston was a surpris- on developing and non-developing tropical disturbances ing instance where development occurred initially, but and to test the recently proposed marsupial model of following a period of decline (sampled by the GV) re- tropical cyclogenesis in association with tropical easterly development did not occur. Matthew surprisingly formed waves (Dunkerton et al. 2009). The overarching hypoth- in only three days from a weak disturbance in the mid- esis was that tropical depression formation is greatly Atlantic Inter-Tropical-Convergence-Zone (ITCZ). favoured in the critical-layer region of the synoptic-scale, The main focus of this study is on the three storms: pre-depression wave or subtropical disturbance. A sum- ex-Tropical Storm Gaston, pre-Hurricanes Karl and pre- mary of the scientific basis for the experiment as well Tropical Storm Matthew, but some data will be presented as some highlights of the data obtained is described by for pre-Hurricane Nichol. We contrast these data with with Montgomery et al. (2011). The experiment collected, a brief discussion of those of obtained during the mature inter alia, unprecedented3 dropwindsonde data from two stage of Hurricane Earl. high-altitude flying aircraft (the NCAR GV and NASA In the analyses presented, the negative ocean influ- DC8). The flights were focused on the so-called “wave ence of mixing up of cold water beneath the thermocline pouch” (Dunkerton et al. 2009) and its immediate vicinity. to the surface is neglected because the development and The wave pouch is defined as the region of recirculating non-development of tropical disturbances occurs at rela- streamlines depicted in the frame of reference at a given tively low surface winds of approximately 30 knots or less altitude moving with the tropical disturbance in the lower where the impact of wind-induced mixing of cold water is troposphere and the centre of circulation is referred to as small (Shay, 2010). the “sweet spot”, the location at which, according to the marsupial paradigm, a tropical cyclone is most likely to form. In the PREDICT experiment, the 700 hPa level was 3 Dropwinsonde data typically used to track the pouch of a candidate distur- bance and to delineate its boundary with environmental Between 20 and 25 dropwindsondes were made during air. These data provide a unique opportunity to examine each GV flight mission. Diurnal cycle effects were largely the evolution of the thermodynamic and kinematic struc- filtered by the fact that the GV flights were carried out at ture of the wave pouches identified for both developing approximately the same time of day. After quality control and non-developing systems. using the NCAR Aspen software and further manual In this study we will examine thermodynamic aspects inspection to eliminate sondes that did not record all the of the sounding data acquired during the experiment, way to the surface, the precise number of usable sondes focusing on the day-to-day changes in the mean profiles from the GV is summarized here. For ex-Tropical Storm of potential temperature and equivalent potential tempera- Gaston: 20 on 2 September, 21 on 3 and 5 September, ture. While these analyses cannot directly offer an under- and 22 on 6 and 7 September. For pre-Hurricane Karl: standing of the spin up process on the mesoscale, they 21 for the two flights on 10 September and the flights nonetheless offer quantitative information on the changes on 11 and 14 September, 22 on 12 September and 20 in the thermodynamic mean states during development or on 13 September.
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