The Bulk Richardson Number (BRN) is an approximation of the Gradient Richardson number. [1] The BRN is a dimensionless ratio in meteorology related to the consumption of turbulence divided by the shear production (the generation of turbulence kinetic energy caused by wind shear) of turbulence. It is used to show dynamic stability and the formation of turbulence.
The BRN is used frequently in meteorology due to widely available radiosonde data and numerical weather forecasts that supply wind and temperature measurements at discrete points in space. [2]
Below is the formula for the BRN, where g is gravitational acceleration, Tv is absolute virtual temperature, Δθv is the virtual potential temperature difference across a layer of thickness, Δz is vertical depth, and ΔU and ΔV are the changes in horizontal wind components across that same layer. [1]
High values indicate unstable and/or weakly-sheared environments; low values indicate weak instability and/or strong vertical shear. Generally, values in the range of around 10 to 50 suggest environmental conditions favorable for supercell development. [3]
In the limit of layer thickness becoming small, the Bulk Richardson number approaches the Gradient Richardson number, for which a critical Richardson number is roughly Ric= 0.25. Numbers less than this critical value are dynamically unstable and likely to become or remain turbulent. [1]
The critical value of 0.25 applies only for local gradients, not for finite differences across thick layers. The thicker the layer is the more likely we are to average out large gradients that occur within small sub-regions of the layer of interest. This results in uncertainty of our prediction of the occurrence of turbulence, and now one must use an artificially large value of the critical Richardson number to give reasonable results using our smoothed gradients. This means that the thinner the layer, the closer the value to the theory. [2]
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are sometimes called thundershowers. Thunderstorms occur in a type of cloud known as a cumulonimbus. They are usually accompanied by strong winds and often produce heavy rain and sometimes snow, sleet, or hail, but some thunderstorms produce little precipitation or no precipitation at all. Thunderstorms may line up in a series or become a rainband, known as a squall line. Strong or severe thunderstorms include some of the most dangerous weather phenomena, including large hail, strong winds, and tornadoes. Some of the most persistent severe thunderstorms, known as supercells, rotate as do cyclones. While most thunderstorms move with the mean wind flow through the layer of the troposphere that they occupy, vertical wind shear sometimes causes a deviation in their course at a right angle to the wind shear direction.
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The Richardson number (Ri) is named after Lewis Fry Richardson (1881–1953). It is the dimensionless number that expresses the ratio of the buoyancy term to the flow shear term:
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Cold air damming, or CAD, is a meteorological phenomenon that involves a high-pressure system (anticyclone) accelerating equatorward east of a north-south oriented mountain range due to the formation of a barrier jet behind a cold front associated with the poleward portion of a split upper level trough. Initially, a high-pressure system moves poleward of a north-south mountain range. Once it sloshes over poleward and eastward of the range, the flow around the high banks up against the mountains, forming a barrier jet which funnels cool air down a stretch of land east of the mountains. The higher the mountain chain, the deeper the cold air mass becomes lodged to its east, and the greater impediment it is within the flow pattern and the more resistant it becomes to intrusions of milder air.
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Conditional symmetric instability, or CSI, is a form of convective instability in a fluid subject to temperature differences in a uniform rotation frame of reference while it is thermally stable in the vertical and dynamically in the horizontal. The instability in this case develop only in an inclined plane with respect to the two axes mentioned and that is why it can give rise to a so-called "slantwise convection" if the air parcel is almost saturated and moved laterally and vertically in a CSI area. This concept is mainly used in meteorology to explain the mesoscale formation of intense precipitation bands in an otherwise stable region, such as in front of a warm front. The same phenomenon is also applicable to oceanography.
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