Cyclic Supercells

[John Hudson]

I find the concept of cyclic supercells to be real fascinating, the way the storms intensify, plateau then go through a sort of weakening phase then explode again. They seem to be some of the most prolific producers of severe weather.

What I don't completely understand is how they do what they do. Just taking an educated guess, my thoughts were that the dominant mesocyclone becomes occluded later in its lifespan, and eventually dissipates. Then possibly the outflow from the storm triggers a new updraft region which generates a new meso.

Is there anyone who can explain to me how this happens, or point me in the direction of a web resource?

Thanks, in advance!

John
VE4 JTH

[Jeff Snyder]

Although this is long, I'd really recommend giving the following paper a read-through (the dissertation of Edwin Addlerman, an OU alumn). Of course, you won't need to read all of it, but the intro, discussion, and conclusions will be helpful in understanding some aspects of cyclic mesocyclones and supercells. Note that this is over 100 MB, so you'll probably want to avoid downloading it if you are on a slow (i.e. dial-up) connection. The paper deals with cyclic mesocyclones from a numerical modeling standpoint, but it has plenty of info that you'll find interesting and that will shed light on how supercells "cycle".

--> Adlerman, Edwin, 2003: NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS OF CYCLIC STORM BEHAVIOR: MESOCYCLOGENESIS AND TORNADOGENESIS (http://kelvin.ou.edu/Ed%20Adlerman%20Dissertation.pdf)

[John Hudson]

The paper at the end of that link is about the most detailed explanation I've ever seen on the subject. It will be extremely useful.


Thanks, Jeff!

John