Identification

Title

A high‐impact meso‐beta vortex in the Adriatic Sea

Abstract

On the evening of November 12, 2019, an exceptional high tide - the second-highest in the ranking since sea-level data have been recorded - hit the city of Venice in northern Italy and its entire lagoon, damaging a large part of its historical center. A small warm-core mesoscale cyclone, which formed in the central Adriatic Sea and intensified during its northwestward movement toward the Venice lagoon, was responsible for the event. The cyclone was preceded by intense northeasterlies (Bora) in the northern Adriatic, which turned to southeasterlies (Sirocco) and then southwesterlies after its passage. Simulations with different initialization times were carried out with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Simulation results show a strong sensitivity to the initial conditions, since the track (and strength) of the cyclone was determined by the exact position of an upper-level potential vorticity (PV) streamer. The factors responsible for the cyclone development and its characteristics are also investigated. The pre-existence of positive low-level cyclonic vorticity, associated with the convergence of the Sirocco and Bora winds in the central Adriatic, made the environment favorable for cyclone development. Also, the interaction between the upper-level PV anomaly and the low-level baroclinicity, created by the advection of warm, humid air associated with the Sirocco, was responsible for the cyclone's intensification, in a manner similar to a transitory (stable) baroclinic interaction at small horizontal scales. Sensitivity experiments reveal that convection, latent heat release and sea-surface fluxes did not play a significant role, indicating that this cyclone did not show tropical-like characteristics, notwithstanding its low-level warm core. Thus, the warm-core feature appears mainly as a characteristic of the environment in which the cyclone developed rather than a consequence of diabatic processes. Lastly, the cyclone does not fall into any of the existing categories for Adriatic cyclones.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7br8x3c

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2023-01-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact