Identification

Title

Understanding atypical midlevel wind speed maxima in hurricane eyewalls

Abstract

In tropical cyclones (TCs), the peak wind speed is typically found near the top of the boundary layer (approximately 0.5–1 km). Recently, it was shown that in a few observed TCs, the wind speed within the eyewall can increase with height within the midtroposphere, resulting in a secondary local maximum at 4–5 km. This study presents additional evidence of such an atypical structure, using dropsonde and Doppler radar observations from Hurricane Patricia (2015). Near peak intensity, Patricia exhibited an absolute wind speed maximum at 5–6-km height, along with a weaker boundary layer maximum. Idealized simulations and a diagnostic boundary layer model are used to investigate the dynamics that result in these atypical wind profiles, which only occur in TCs that are very intense (surface wind speed > 50 m s−1) and/or very small (radius of maximum winds < 20 km). The existence of multiple maxima in wind speed is a consequence of an inertial oscillation that is driven ultimately by surface friction. The vertical oscillation in the radial velocity results in a series of unbalanced tangential wind jets, whose magnitude and structure can manifest as a midlevel wind speed maximum. The wavelength of the inertial oscillation increases with vertical mixing length l∞ in a turbulence parameterization, and no midlevel wind speed maximum occurs when l∞ is large. Consistent with theory, the wavelength in the simulations scales with (2K/I)1/2, where K is the (vertical) turbulent diffusivity, and I2 is the inertial stability. This scaling is used to explain why only small and/or strong TCs exhibit midlevel wind speed maxima.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d78p629n

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

2020-05-01T00:00:00Z

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