A new pathway for tornadogenesis exposed by numerical simulations of supercells in turbulent...
18,067
Published 2023-11-16
Paul Markowski, Penn State University
Abstract:
A simulation of a supercell storm produced for a prior study on tornado predictability is reanalyzed for the purpose of examining the finescale details of tornadogenesis. It is found that the formation of a tornado-like vortex in the simulation differs from how such vortices have been understood to form in previous numerical simulations. The main difference between the present simulation and past ones is the inclusion of a turbulent boundary layer in the storm's environment in the present case, whereas prior simulations have used a laminar boundary layer. The turbulent environment contains significant near-surface vertical vorticity, organized in the form of longitudinal streaks aligned with the southerly ground-relative winds. The ζ streaks are associated with corrugations in the vertical plane in the predominantly horizontal, westward-pointing environmental vortex lines; the vortex-line corrugations are produced by the vertical drafts associated with coherent turbulent structures aligned with the aforementioned southerly ground-relative winds (longitudinal coherent structures in the surface layer such as these are well-known to the boundary layer and turbulence communities). The ζ streaks serve as focal points for tornadogenesis, and may actually facilitate tornadogenesis, given how near-surface ζ in the environment can rapidly amplify when subjected to the strong, persistent convergence beneath a supercell updraft.
All Comments (21)
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I dont understand a lot of this, but it is still very interesting to watch.
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I have seen this as a radar tech before and my friend told me I was crazy and that nobody can see that much detail. But I swear you sometimes can see these small eddy currents and when they collide with the gust front at the wrong angle they get snuffed out but there's a certain angle that I can tell the collision is going to kick off a tornado! Vindication!
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Very interesting video! Thanks for sharing!
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I'm surprised that anything is ever simulated without turbulence, it makes no sense in my head
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Sorry for my ignorance or if this is a stupid question just trying to understand better. Is there anything going on above the storm powering it or creating energy or is it all from below?
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Absolutely great talk! I have a few questions and things I noticed in the simulations. 1. Depends the lack of horizontal vorticity on the cool side of the gustfront in the STORM9 simulation only on the slower ground relative wind? I would assume the warmer coldpool should lower the amount of baroclinicly generated vorticity as well, which would also result in less horizontal vorticity. 2. It's a bit hard to tell but to me it seems like the TLV from STORM9 is very close to the edge of the gustfront, while in C20 the TLV seems to be a bit deeper in the cold air. Also the RFD seems to have more turbulence and surges in C20 and reaches further east than in STORM9. Does this also appear in the other simulations with strong TLVs? If so, it may be something to look for in real storms to distinguish between the classic and the boundary layer turbulence tornado formation, if both occur in reality.
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Does the correlation of an impact on the trajectories of a magnetic field also have an effectiveness on the subject?
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This was interesting. I'd like to know how it squares with leigh orfs research.
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what if low level jet transport is disrupted towards ground hitting stout updraft
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Regarding the frictional component: Is it possible that, where we see the path of an EF2 or EF3 enter into a developed urban enviroment, the rapid intensification into an EF4 or even an EF5 results from the established vortex being intensified by the suddenly increased friction with obsticles (houses, different ground surfaces), etc?
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9:28 Leigh Orf ?
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45:41 I believe I see this all the time when I am out chasing. The tornado seems to form away from the lowering.
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O.C. Hilgenberg figured that all out a long time ago. In '30s through the '50s.
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excessive negatiev buoyancy , i was in a goldylocks zone where there were no winds just per say but had been they died off and everything fell to the ground , i had though it tailed out , i had not , all of a sudden everything started floating and then everything went sideways ,
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Here's something that needs to be taken in consideration. The magnetic pole shift causing small dipoles on the face of the Earth. Kind of like what we see on the sun. And the fact that water and water vapor are electrical and magnetic in nature. I've often wondered about tornadoes but I've finally come to realize we are looking at something forming not only because of a storm but because of dynamic magnetic flux on the face of the Earth.
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Where would directed energy have to be directed to guarantee a tornado?
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It's about time someone exposes these tornadoes. They've been getting away with this for too long. I thought the word "expose" was a strange choice in the title.
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Ahh yes, I know some of these words.
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Perhaps there's a new understanding of how tornadoes develop, but there's not a new 'pathway'.
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Paul is realizing that the pieces of the puzzle of his standard theory are not fitting together very well. I'm way past that. The secret is hidden in the confusion surrounding H2O and its anomalies. Paul is starting to realize that only if some kind of superhero-like structural capability appears on the scene would his own model make sense! And it does. It literally does. In reality. Structural capabilities do emerge at exactly the right locations — along extensive moist/dry wind shear boundaries — in the form of spinning, highly polar, polymers (chains) of H2O molecules. The substance that emerges is a plasma of spinning chains of H2O molecules — a plasma of self-attracted polymers of spinning H2O molecules — which as a substance begins to encircle its flow of drier air and form into a tube. The structural properties are conserved in/with the plasma, maybe especially with respect to the laws of conservation of angular momentum associated with the spinning polymers of H2O molecules which comprise this plasma and which themselves encircle the flow where the wind shear interaction is itself conserved along the inner surface. James McGinn / Genius / Solving Tornadoes
