U.S. flag An official website of the United States government.
Official websites use .gov

A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS

A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

i

The Influence of Ground-Relative Flow and Friction on Near-Surface Storm-Relative Helicity



Details

  • Journal Title:
    Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences
  • Personal Author:
  • NOAA Program & Office:
    CIMMS (Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies)
  • Description:
    Recent studies have highlighted the importance of near-ground storm-relative helicity (SRH) in supercell and tornado processes and how surface friction can play a role. In this study, we use an analytical approach to examine how uniform changes to the ground-relative wind profile above the near-ground layer influence SRH within the near-ground layer. We show how the ground-relative influence of surface friction alters the near-ground shear profile. For idealized semicircular and straight shear profiles, increasing preexisting ground-relative flow above the near-ground layer yields increasing SRH. The magnitude of the SRH increase is sensitive to storm motion, with more deviant motion yielding greater SRH increases given the same increase in ground-relative flow. Supercells may be more susceptible to storm-induced SRH enhancements given their deviant motion and ability to increase ground-relative flow in the background environment.
  • Keywords:
  • Source:
    Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 78(7), 2135-2142
  • DOI:
  • Document Type:
    Journal Article
  • Funding:
    Grant no. NA11OAR4320072
  • Rights Information:
    Other
  • Compliance:
    Submitted
  • Main Document Checksum:
    urn:sha256:746a5124e6801616b38155a2e844c35e229b8ff3a498ea68e4727d44d7f3ce8e
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:
    Filetype[PDF - 718.43 KB ]
PREVIOUS
ON THIS PAGE
Details
The NOAA IR serves as an archival repository of NOAA-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other information authored or co-authored by NOAA or funded partners. As a repository, the NOAA IR retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.
BACK TO TOP