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About 140 years ago, Lord Kelvin derived the equations describing waves that travel along the axis of concentrated vortices such as tornadoes. Although Kelvin's vortex waves, also known as centrifugal waves, feature prominently in the engineering and fluid dynamics literature, they have not attracted as much attention in the field of atmospheric science. To remedy this circumstance, Kelvin's elegant derivation is retraced, and slightly generalized, to obtain solutions for a hierarchy of vortex flows that model basic features of tornado-like vortices. This treatment seeks to draw attention to the important work that Lord Kelvin did in this field, and reveal the remarkably rich structure and dynamics of these waves. Kelvin's solutions help explain the vortex breakdown phenomenon routinely observed in modeled tornadoes, and it is shown that his work is compatible with the widely used criticality condition put forth by Benjamin in 1962. Moreover, it is demonstrated that Kelvin's treatment, with the slight generalization, includes unstable wave solutions that have been invoked to explain some aspects of the formation of multiple-vortex tornadoes. The analysis of the unstable solutions also forms the basis for determining whether, for example, an axisymmetric or a spiral vortex breakdown occurs. Kelvin's work thus helps explain some of the visible features of tornado-like vortices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Two widely accepted conceptual models of extratropical cyclone structure and evolution exist: the Norwegian and Shapiro--Keyser cyclone models. The Norwegian cyclone model was developed around 1920 by the Bergen School meteorologists. This model has come to feature an acute angle between the cold and warm fronts, with the reduction in the area of the warm sector during the evolution of the cyclone corresponding to the formation of an occluded front. The Shapiro--Keyser cyclone model was developed around 1990 and was motivated by the recognition of alternative frontal structures depicted in model simulations and observations of rapidly developing extratropical cyclones. This model features a right angle between the cold and warm fronts (T-bone), a weakening of the poleward portion of the cold front (frontal fracture), an extension of the warm or occluded front to the rear of and around the cyclone (bent-back front), and the wrapping around of the bent-back front to form a warm-core seclusion of post-cold-frontal air. Although the Norwegian cyclone model preceded the Shapiro--Keyser cyclone model by 70 years, antecedents of features of the Shapiro--Keyser cyclone model were apparent in observations, analyses, and conceptual models presented by the Bergen School meteorologists, their adherents, and their progeny. These "lost" antecedents are collected here for the first time to show that the Bergen School meteorologists were aware of them, although not all of the antecedents survived until their reintroduction into the Shapiro--Keyser cyclone model in 1990. Thus, the Shapiro--Keyser cyclone model can be viewed as a synthesis of various elements of cyclone structure and evolution recognized by the Bergen School meteorologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Edward Kidson, Director of the Meteorological Service of New Zealand from 1927 until his death in 1939, was an instrumental figure in modernizing Australasian meteorology. Throughout the 1920s, Kidson promoted the methods of synoptic analysis emanating from the Bergen School of Meteorology. However, it was not until the 1930s that he began in earnest to apply these methods to weather charts for the Australasian region. This development was aided by two visits he made to Bergen and by a personal correspondence he maintained with Jacob Bjerknes during the 1930s. In 1932, Kidson presented the first Norwegian-style analysis conducted for a Southern Hemisphere region, promptly following this with a more extensive study. However, these analyses were not of a sufficient standard at that stage to be adopted in forecasting practice. It was the fortuitous visit to New Zealand of Norwegian meteorologist Jørgen Holmboe, in 1934, that finally facilitated the transition. Holmboe was attached to the Lincoln Ellsworth Antarctic Expedition, but damage to their aircraft caused them to spend the winter of 1934 in New Zealand. Holmboe was engaged at the Meteorological Service in Wellington during this period, working with Kidson to apply Norwegian methods to the region. Kidson had hoped to further embed this practice by employing Tor Bergeron in New Zealand during 1938. Bergeron had accepted an offer from Kidson but canceled at the last minute after contracting rheumatic fever. Nevertheless, shortly after Holmboe’s visit, daily analyses were being conducted along Norwegian lines, bringing Australasian meteorology into the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Tor Bergeron was a key member of the Bergen School of Meteorology that developed some of the most influential contributions to synoptic analysis in the twentieth century: airmass analysis, polar-front theory, and the Norwegian cyclone model. However, the eventual success of these so-called Bergen methods of synoptic analysis was not guaranteed. Concerns and criticisms of the methods—in part from the lack of referencing to prior studies, overly simplified conceptual models, and lack of real data in papers by J. Bjerknes and Solberg—were inhibiting worldwide adoption. Bergeron's research output in the 1920s was aimed at addressing these concerns. His doctoral thesis, written in German, was published as a journal article in Geofysiske Publikasjoner in 1928. Here, an accessible and annotated English translation is provided along with a succinct overview of this seminal study. Major interlaced themes of Bergeron's study were the first comprehensive description of the Bergen methods: a vigorous defense of cyclogenesis as primarily a lower-tropospheric process as opposed to an upper-tropospheric–lower-stratospheric one; a nuanced explanation of the assertion that meteorology constituted a distinct and special scientific discipline; and, very understandably, a thorough account of Bergeron's own contributions to the Bergen School. His contributions included identifying how deformation results in frontogenesis and frontolysis, classifying the influence of aerosols on visibility, and explaining the role of the ambient conditions in the onset of drizzle as opposed to rain showers—a distinction that led the formulation of the Wegener–Bergeron–Findeisen process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This paper reviews research conducted over the last six decades to understand and quantify the efficacy of wintertime orographic cloud seeding to increase winter snowpack and water supplies within a mountain basin. The fundamental hypothesis underlying cloud seeding as a method to enhance precipitation from wintertime orographic cloud systems is that a cloud's natural precipitation efficiency can be enhanced by converting supercooled water to ice upstream and over a mountain range in such a manner that newly created ice particles can grow and fall to the ground as additional snow on a specified target area. The review summarizes the results of physical, statistical, and modeling studies aimed at evaluating this underlying hypothesis, with a focus on results from more recent experiments that take advantage of modern instrumentation and advanced computation capabilities. Recent advances in assessment and operations are also reviewed, and recommendations for future experiments, based on the successes and failures of experiments of the past, are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

In this study, low-frequency variability of the meridional temperature transport in the Indian Ocean is examined using a mesoscale-eddy-resolving global ocean circulation model for the period 1979–2014. The dominant empirical orthogonal function (EOF) of the meridional temperature transport is found to be highly influenced by Pacific El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) through both oceanic and atmospheric waveguides, with the southward temperature transport being stronger during La Niña and weaker during El Niño. A dynamical decomposition of the meridional streamfunction and temperature transport shows that the relative importance of different dynamic modes varies with latitude; these modes act together to contribute to the coherent ENSO response. The Ekman mode explains a larger part of low-frequency variability in overturning and temperature transport north of the equator. Between 25° and 3°S, variations associated with vertical shear mode are of greater importance. The external mode has an important contribution between 30° and 25°S where the western boundary currents impinge on topography. South of 25°S, the variability of the external mode contribution has significant negative correlations with the vertical shear mode, suggesting that the large variability of external mode depends on the joint effects of baroclinicity and topography, such that hydrographic sections alone may not be suitable for deducing changes in the meridional temperature transport at these latitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This article challenges the assumption that the seasonal cycle of rainfall in equatorial Africa is controlled by the seasonal excursion of the ITCZ and calls for additional research on the seasonal cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Traditionally, the formation of an occluded front during the occlusion process in extratropical cyclones has been viewed as the catch-up of a faster-moving cold front to a slower-moving warm front separating the warm-sector air from the low center, as first described in the Norwegian cyclone model over 90 yr ago. In this article, the conventional wisdom, or the commonly held beliefs originating from the Norwegian cyclone model, about occluded fronts and the occlusion process are critically examined. The following four tenets of this conventional wisdom are addressed. First, the occlusion process is better described not by catch-up, but by the wrapping up and lengthening of the warm-air tongue as a result of deformation and rotation around the low center. Second, the merger of the cold front and warm front does not result in the frontal zone with the warmer air ascending over the other frontal zone. Instead, the occluded frontal zone tilts over the more statically stable frontal zone. Because a warmfrontal zone tends to be more stable than a cold-frontal zone, this process usually produces a warm-type occlusion, confirming that cold-type occlusions are less common than warm-type occlusions. Third, occlusion does not mean that the cyclone has stopped deepening, because many cyclones continue to deepen 10-30 mb for 12-36 h after the formation of the occluded front. Fourth, clouds and precipitation associated with occluded fronts differ from their widespread stratiform depiction in textbooks. Embedded precipitation bands may be parallel to the front, and little relationship may exist between the fronts and the cloud mass. These four tenets help to explain anomalies in the Norwegian cyclone model, such as how occluded fronts that spiral around the low center do not require catch-up to form, how Shapiro-Keyser cyclones undergo occlusion, why some cyclones do not form occluded fronts, how some cyclones deepen after occlusion, why few cold-type occlusions have been observed, and why occluded cyclones are often associated with heavy precipitation. This reexamination of conventional wisdom leads to a new paradigm for occluded fronts and occluded cyclones. A supplement to this article is available online: DOI: [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Although aircraft encounters with strong westerly winds during World War II provided the stimulus for postwar research on the jet stream, Wasaburo Ooishi observed these winds in the 1920s. Ooishi's work is reviewed in the context of earlier work in upperair observation and postwar work on the jet stream. An effort is made to reconstruct Ooishi's path to the directorship of Japan's first upper-air observatory by reliance on historical studies and memoirs from the Central Meteorological Observatory. Archival records from Japan's Aerological Observatory have been used to document Ooishi's upperair observations. The first official report from the observatory (written in 1926 and in the auxiliary language of Esperanto) assumes a central role in the study. In this report, data are stratified by season and used to produce the mean seasonal wind profiles. The profile for winter gives the first known evidence of the persistent strong westerlies over Japan that would later become known as the jet stream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The Ertel potential vorticity theorem for stratified viscous fluids in a rotating system is analyzed herein. A set of "tracers," that is, materially conserved scalar quantities, and the corresponding Ertel potential vorticities are used to obtain an absolute fluid velocity determination (including both horizontal and vertical components) that generalizes earlier formulations known in the literature within the framework of the beta-spiral method. Potential vorticity fields, respectively, of (i) density, (ii) potential temperature, (iii) salinity, and (iv) the latter's potential vorticities ratio are analyzed in order to infer properties of steady, or quasi-steady, nonhorizontal or slightly viscous currents. For horizontal flows, general conservative properties of a large class of tracer potential vorticities are found and discussed. These ideas are then applied to various steady cases of physical interest, such as density fronts and thermohaline currents. These arguments, together with observational data, are used to obtain some interesting results, even if the values obtained are affected by large experimental errors. Using this method allows the ratio of the vertical and horizontal components of the velocity field to be estimated with greater certainty. Further insight is also gained into a purely hydrological identification of the no-motion level, a classical difficulty in hydrology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

A numerical simulation using the Pennsylvania State University–National Center for Atmospheric Research fifth-generation Mesoscale Model (MM5) was run on a rainband associated with a cold front aloft (CFA) in a warm occluded structure on the U.S. east coast. The storm originally developed in the lee of the Rocky Mountains as a Pacific cold front overtook a Rocky Mountain lee trough. This formed a warm-type, occluded structure that was essentially maintained as the storm proceeded to the East Coast. The CFA was a thermal front and therefore dynamically active. The prominence of the CFA in the equivalent potential temperature field was due primarily to the strong upward transport of water vapor from lower levels in the updraft associated with the CFA. The baroclinic zone was characterized by a tipped-forward lower region, where the CFA coincided with a maximum in potential temperature, and a tipped-backward upper region, where the CFA coincided with the leading (warm-side) edge of a zone of enhanced thermal gradient. The tipped-backward upper region displayed many of the characteristics of a vertically propagating gravity wave. In both of these regions, the potential temperature pattern produced a corresponding change in pressure gradient within the baroclinic zone; the imbalance of forces acting on air parcels as they moved through this pressure gradient produced the convergence in the lower baroclinic zone that was responsible for the CFA rainband. Neither the dry quasigeostrophic nor dry Sawyer–Eliassen diagnosis resolved the details of the simulated mesoscale lifting associated with the CFA rainband. This is because the baroclinic zone of the CFA was mesoscale and structurally complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The topographic distortion of a cold front over the Snake River Plain (SRP) and central Idaho Mountains on 3 December 1998 is described using high-density surface observations from MesoWest, a collection of meteorological networks over the western United States. Although relatively unperturbed upstream of central Idaho, the cold front became distorted as it was deflected and accelerated up the low-elevation SRP, where a pronounced frontal bulge developed. The speed of the cold front over the SRP was comparable to the magnitude of the postfrontal winds that, due to terrain channeling, were oriented normal to the front. Meanwhile, the front advanced more slowly over the central Idaho mountains and southwest Montana, becoming increasingly diffuse over the former. Eventually, cold air surrounded the central Idaho Mountains and the two portions of the cold front merged over eastern Idaho. The cold front intensified as it moved from the eastern to central SRP, with rapid changes in temperature and pressure observed at locations in the southern half of the SRP. Intensification of the cross-frontal temperature gradient in this region appeared to be the result of confluence between southerly prefrontal winds, which experienced downslope warming to the lee of the Jarbidge–Caribou Highlands, and terrain-channeled postfrontal winds. Although the rapid changes in temperature and pressure suggested that the front developed the local structure of a gravity current, the frontal motion over the SRP was not consistent with gravity current theory and instead appeared to be the result of advection of the front by the terrain-induced flow field. The case study illustrates the value of high-density and multielevation MesoWest observations for advancing knowledge of frontal evolution over the western United States and improving operational surface analyses. Such observations aid in the identification of large-scale airmass and circulation changes that can be masked by bou... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Observational and modeling studies documented in the literature indicate that the large-scale flow has an important effect on the structure and evolution of low-level fronts in midlatitude cyclones. The purpose of this paper is to address the role of the large-scale flow on low-level cyclone/frontal structure and evolution through a combined observational and idealized modeling approach. Analyses of two observed cyclone cases embedded in large-scale diffluence and confluence, respectively, are presented to illustrate two possible cyclone/frontal structures and evolutions. Specifically, the cyclone moving into a diffluent, high-amplitude ridge becomes meridionally elongated and possesses a strong meridionally oriented cold front and a weak warm front. The cold front rotates into the warm front, forming an occluded front in the manner of the Norwegian cyclone model, as indicated by the narrowing of the thermal ridge connecting the warm sector to the cyclone center. In contrast, the cyclone moving into confluent, low-amplitude zonal flow becomes zonally elongated and possesses strong zonally oriented warm and bent-back fronts and a weak cold front. The frontal structure in this case is reminiscent of the Shapiro-Keyser cyclone model, exhibiting a fracture between perpendicularly oriented cold and warm fronts (i.e., the so-called frontal T-bone structure). The idealized simulations employ a nondivergent barotropic model in which potential temperature is treated as a passive tracer. When a circular vortex acts on an initially zonally oriented baroclinic zone, cold and warm fronts, a frontal fracture, a bent-back front, and eventually a Norwegian-like occlusion develop. When a circular vortex is placed in a diffluent background flow, the vortex and frontal zones become meridionally elongated, and the evolution resembles the Norwegian occlusion with a narrowing thermal ridge. When a circular vortex is placed in a confluent background flow, the vortex and... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...