Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 115, Issue 33, Pages 8307-8310Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1807217115
Keywords
tropical cyclone eyewall; large eddy simulation; tornado-scale vortex
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Funding
- National Basic Research Program of China [2015CB452803]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [41730961, 41675051, 41675009]
- Jiangsu Provincial Natural Science Fund Project [BK20150910]
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Analyses of datasets from manned research flights that penetrated hurricane eyes and tropical cyclone (TC) damage surveys strongly suggest the existence of tornado-scale vortices in the turbulent boundary layer of the TC eyewall. However, their small horizontal scale, their fast movement, and the associated severe turbulence make the tornado-scale vortex very difficult to observe directly. To understand tornado-scale vortices in the TC eyewall and their influence on the TC vortex, mesoscale rainbands, and convective clouds, a numerical experiment including seven nested domains with the smallest horizontal grid interval of 37 m is conducted to perform a large eddy simulation (LES) with the Advanced Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. We show that most of the observed features associated with tornado-scale vortices can be realistically simulated in the WRF-LES framework. The numerical simulation confirms the existence of simulated tornado-scale vortices in the turbulent boundary layer of the TC eyewall. Our numerical experiment suggests that tornado-scale vortices are prevalent at the inner edge of the intense eyewall convection.
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