Sergio F. Abarca

An evaluation of the Worldwide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) using the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) as ground truth

[1] A performance assessment of the Worldwide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) is presented using the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) as ground truth, over unprecedented time and spatial scales. The study spans 3 years, from 5 April 2006 to 31 March 2009, throughout the contiguous United States. The capabilities of the network are shown to improve greatly from the first to the third year of the study, with an overall detection efficiency of cloud‐to‐ground flashes increasing from 3.88% in 2006 −2007 to 10.30% in 2008−2009. The WWLLN cloud‐to‐ground detection efficiency is found to be strongly dependent on peak current and polarity, attaining values larger than 10% (35%) for currents stronger than ±35 kA (−130 kA) and values less than 2% for currents between 0 and −10 kA. The location accuracy is found to have a northward and westward bias, with average location errors of 4.03 km in the north‐south and 4.98 km in the east‐west directions, respectively. The WWLLN is shown to have strong limitations in capturing the diurnal cycle, missing both the timing of the maximum and minimum lightning activity (around 1600 and 0900 LT, respectively), and the amplitude of the cycle as well. It is found that in 3 h intervals, the number of flashes in the WWLLN has some proportionality to the number of flashes in the NLDN, suggesting that the WWLLN has strong potential for meteorological applications. Citation: Abarca, S. F., K. L. Corbosiero, and T. J. Galarneau Jr. (2010), An evaluation of the Worldwide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) using the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) as ground truth, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D18206,

The World Wide Lightning Location Network and Convective Activity in Tropical Cyclones

Abstract Lightning flash density in tropical cyclones (TCs) is investigated to identify whether lightning flashes provide information on TC intensity and/or intensity change, to provide further insight into TC asymmetric convective structure induced by vertical shear and storm motion, and to assess how well the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) is suited for the observation of TCs. The 24 Atlantic basin TCs that came within 400 km of the United States from 2004 to 2007 are studied. The National Lightning Detection Network is used to analyze flash density as a function of peak current and to evaluate the WWLLN. Flash density is shown to be smaller for hurricanes than for tropical depressions and storms, with this reduction being gradually more pronounced as flash peak current increases. The results suggest that flash density in the inner core is a parameter with potential for distinguishing intensifying versus nonintensifying TCs, particularly in the weaker storm stages where flash densities ar...

Essential Dynamics of Secondary Eyewall Formation

AbstractThe authors conduct an analysis of the dynamics of secondary eyewall formation in two modeling frameworks to obtain a more complete understanding of the phenomenon. The first is a full-physics, three-dimensional mesoscale model in which the authors examine an idealized hurricane simulation that undergoes a canonical eyewall replacement cycle. Analysis of the mesoscale simulation shows that secondary eyewall formation occurs in a conditionally unstable environment, questioning the applicability of moist-neutral viewpoints and related mathematical formulations thereto for studying this process of tropical cyclone intensity change. The analysis offers also new evidence in support of a recent hypothesis that secondary eyewalls form via a progressive boundary layer control of the vortex dynamics in response to a radial broadening of the tangential wind field.The second analysis framework is an axisymmetric, nonlinear, time-dependent, slab boundary layer model with radial diffusion. When this boundary l...

Departures from Axisymmetric Balance Dynamics during Secondary Eyewall Formation

AbstractDepartures from axisymmetric balance dynamics are quantified during a case of secondary eyewall formation. The case occurred in a three-dimensional mesoscale convection-permitting numerical simulation of a tropical cyclone, integrated from an initial weak mesoscale vortex in an idealized quiescent environment. The simulation exhibits a canonical eyewall replacement cycle. Departures from balance dynamics are quantified by comparing the azimuthally averaged secondary circulation and corresponding tangential wind tendencies of the mesoscale integration with those diagnosed as the axisymmetric balanced response of a vortex subject to diabatic and tangential momentum forcing. Balance dynamics is defined here, following the tropical cyclone literature, as those processes that maintain a vortex in axisymmetric thermal wind balance.The dynamical and thermodynamical fields needed to characterize the background vortex for the Sawyer–Eliassen inversion are obtained by azimuthally averaging the relevant quan...

Comments on “How Does the Boundary Layer Contribute to Eyewall Replacement Cycles in Axisymmetric Tropical Cyclones?”

Abstract : In a recent paper, Kepert (2013, hereafter K13) investigated the theoretical role of the boundary layer in eyewall replacement cycles. Specifically, he used a family of steady-state, axisymmetric hurricane boundary layer models to examine the boundary layer response to an imposed radial profile of tangential winds with two wind maxima. Based on these solutions, he proposed a new feedback mechanism for secondary eyewall formation (SEF) and pointed to the role of the underlying boundary layer dynamics in this process. Specifically, he proposed (abstract) that the boundary layer contributes to the formation of outer eyewalls through a positive feedback among the local enhancement of the radial vorticity gradient, the frictional updraft, and convection, and concluded (section 6) that supergradient flow . . . is not essential to SEF.

Are Eyewall Replacement Cycles Governed Largely by Axisymmetric Balance Dynamics

The authors question the widely held view that radial contraction of a secondary eyewall during an eyewall replacement cycle is well understood and governed largely by the classical theory of axisymmetric balance dynamics. The investigation is based on a comparison of the secondary circulation and derived tangential wind tendency between a full-physics simulation and the Sawyer‐Eliassen balance model. The comparison is made at a time when the full-physics model exhibits radial contraction of the secondary eyewall during acanonical eyewall replacement cycle.It is shownthat theSawyer‐Eliassen model is unable to capture the phenomenology of secondary eyewall radial contraction because it predicts a net spindown of the boundary layer tangential winds and does not represent the boundary layer spinup mechanism that has been articulated in recent work.

Comments on “Convectively Generated Potential Vorticity in Rainbands and Formation of the Secondary Eyewall in Hurricane Rita of 2005”

AbstractIn a previous paper Judt and Chen propose that secondary eyewall formation can be the result of the accumulation of convectively generated potential vorticity in the rainbands. They argue that secondary potential vorticity maxima precede the development of the secondary wind maximum and conclude that vortex Rossby waves do not contribute to the formation of the secondary eyewall. Amidst examination of their thought-provoking study, some questions arose regarding their methodology, interpretation, and portrayal of previous literature.Here the authors inquire about aspects of the methodology for diagnosing vortex Rossby waves and assessing their impact on their simulation. Inaccuracies in the literature review are noted and further analysis of existing, three-dimensional, full-physics, numerical hurricane integrations that exhibit canonical secondary eyewalls are encouraged.

The Role of Convective Heating in Tropical Cyclone Eyewall Ring Evolution

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to analyze the role of diabatic heating in tropical cyclone ring structure evolution. A full-physics three-dimensional modeling framework is used to compare the results with two-dimensional modeling approaches and to point to limitations of the barotropic instability theory in predicting the storm vorticity structure configuration. A potential vorticity budget analysis reveals that diabatic heating is a leading-order term and that it is largely offset by potential vorticity advection. Sawyer–Eliassen integrations are used to diagnose the secondary circulation (and corresponding vorticity tendency) forced by prescribed heating. These integrations suggest that diabatic heating forces a secondary circulation (and associated vorticity tendency) that helps maintain the original ring structure in a feedback process. Sensitivity experiments of the Sawyer–Eliassen model reveal that the magnitude of the vorticity tendency is proportional to that of the prescribed heating, indic...

On the Secondary Eyewall Formation of Hurricane Edouard (2014)

A first observationally-based estimation of departures from gradient wind balance during secondary eyewall formation is presented. The study is based on the Atlantic Hurricane Edouard (2014). This storm was observed during the National Aeronautics and Space Administrations (NASA) Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) experiment, a field campaign conducted in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). A total of 135 dropsondes are analyzed in two separate time periods: one named the secondary eyewall formation period and the other one referred to as the decaying-double eyewalled storm period. During the secondary eyewall formation period, a time when the storm was observed to have only one eyewall, the diagnosed agradient force has a secondary maxima that coincides with the radial location of the secondary eyewall observed in the second period of study. The maximum spin up tendency of the radial influx of absolute vertical vorticity is within the boundary layer in the region of the eyewall of the storm and the spin up tendency structure elongates radially outward into the secondary region of supergradient wind, where the secondary wind maxima is observed in the second period of study. An analysis of the boundary-layer averaged vertical structure of equivalent potential temperature reveals a conditionally unstable environment in the secondary eyewall formation region. These findings support the hypothesis that deep convective activity in this region contributed to spin up of the boundary layer tangential winds and the formation of a secondary eyewall that is observed during the decaying-double eyewalled storm period.

The azimuthally averaged boundary layer structure of a numerically simulated major hurricane

This work examines the azimuthally averaged boundary layer structure of a numerically simulated hurricane. We nominally define the hurricane boundary layer as the layer in which the effects of surface friction are associated with significant departures from gradient wind balance. The boundary layer in the intensifying primary and forming secondary eyewalls is found to be nonlinear. At large radii, exterior to the eyewalls, Ekman-like balance as traditionally defined, is found to hold true. Where significant departures from Ekman-like balance are found, the departures are characterized by large vertical advection of horizontal velocity through the depth of the boundary layer. Shock-like structures are not found to be prominent in the azimuthally averaged view of the vortex boundary layer, with the largest azimuthally averaged radial gradients of the radial and tangential velocities being on the order of only a few meters per second per kilometer. Also, in the radial regions of the eyewalls, at the height where the averaged tangential wind is a maximum, the radial advection of radial velocity is an order of magnitude smaller than the agradient force per unit mass. Some physical implications of these findings are discussed.