The rear flank downdraft (RFD) is a region of dry air wrapping around the back of a mesocyclone in a supercell thunderstorm. [1] These areas of descending air are thought to be essential in the production of many supercellular tornadoes. Large hail within the rear flank downdraft often shows up brightly as a hook on weather radar images, producing the characteristic hook echo , which often indicates the presence of a tornado. [1]
The rear flank downdraft can arise owing to negative buoyancy, which can be generated by cold anomalies produced at the rear of the supercell thunderstorm by evaporative cooling of precipitation or hail melting, or injection of dry and cooler air in the cloud, and by vertical perturbation pressure gradients that can arise from vertical gradients of vertical vorticity, stagnation of environmental flow at an updraft, and pressure perturbations due to vertical buoyancy variations (which are partially due to hydrostatic effects). [2]
Vertical pressure perturbations are generated by the buildup of pressure due to the vertical buoyancy, creating a pressure perturbation gradient. The subsiding air is generally dry and as it subsides the air warms adiabatically and can form a clearing in the cloud cover called a clear slot. [2] A clear slot can be observed to wrap around a tornado or form away from a tornado in the shape of a horseshoe. This clearing is most likely the formation of the hook echo region associated with tornado formation. [2] An RFD originating in dry air warming adiabatically can produce warmer observations out of the RFD at the surface.
RFDs may present themselves as a clear slot wrapping itself at least two-thirds of the way around the tornado, but the clear slot is not always evident in cases where an RFD is present. Many documents indicate that surface pressure excesses up to a few millibars exist within RFDs. [2] Some findings showed that within the RFDs equivalent potential temperature (θe) is cold with respect to the inflow. Moreover, the lowest wet-bulb potential temperature (θw) values observed at the surface were within the RFD. There are, however, also observations of warm, high-θe air within RFDs. [2]
Compared to the forward flank downdraft (FFD) the rear flank downdraft (RFD) consists of warm and dry air. This is because the RFD is forced down from the mid-levels of the atmosphere, resulting in compressional heating of downward moving parcels. The FFD, in contrast, is driven by precipitation loading and evaporative cooling in the precipitation core of a supercell thunderstorm, making the FFD relatively cold and wet. Both are thought to be significant in tornado formation.
Rear-flank downdrafts have a well-established association with hook echoes. [3] [4] Firstly, the initial rear flank downdraft is air from aloft transported down to the surface by colliding and mixing with the storm. [2] Secondly, hook echoes form through advection of precipitation from the rear of the main echo around the region of strong updraft. [2] Thus, precipitation loading and evaporation cooling induced by the hook echo can enhance the downdraft. Some observations showed the presence of an enhanced downdraft in the vicinity of the strongest low-level rotation, behind the main storm updraft.
Dry environmental air is also entrained into the downdraft and evaporative cooling helps create more negatively buoyant air. As precipitation falls and cool entrained air circulated downward and eventually reaching the surface. This contributes to the circulation to form a hook echo. It was concluded the presence of a hook echo can reflect downdraft intensification.
Many researchers have realized that rear flank downdrafts, especially those associated with hook echoes, are fundamentally critical to tornado formation (tornadogenesis). In 1975, Ted Fujita originated the recycling hypothesis of tornadogenesis: [3] First, downdraft air is recirculated into the (developing) tornado, which results in an appreciable convergence on the back side of the (still developing) tornado. Then the downward transport of the angular momentum by precipitation, and the recycling of air into the tornado, will create a tangential acceleration required for the intensification of the tornado as a positive feedback loop.
Observations of low-level vorticity couplets within RFDs indicate that tilting of vorticity by the RFD is important in the formation of tornadoes within supercell storms. During the tornadogenesis phase in supercells, the parcels of air infiltrating the tornado or incipient tornado regularly seem to pass through the hook echo and RFD, which can serve as the basis for Fujita's recycling hypothesis. Furthermore, observations of the clear slot during and just prior to the tornadic stage, imply the air infiltrating the tornado may come from the RFD.
Regularly, generation of large vertical vorticity close to the surface in an environment which is required for tornadogenesis, is attributed to downdraft. Tornadoes may arise, however, in the absence of a downdraft in environments containing preexisting vertical vorticity at the surface, such as in some cases of nonsupercell tornadogenesis.
Downdraft may have the following roles in near-ground mesocyclogenesis: [2] [5]
A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology to name a weather system with a low-pressure area in the center around which, from an observer looking down toward the surface of the Earth, winds blow counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern. Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes, and they are often visible in the form of a condensation funnel originating from the base of a cumulonimbus cloud, with a cloud of rotating debris and dust beneath it. Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 180 kilometers per hour, are about 80 meters across, and travel several kilometers before dissipating. The most extreme tornadoes can attain wind speeds of more than 480 kilometers per hour (300 mph), are more than 3 kilometers (2 mi) in diameter, and stay on the ground for more than 100 km (62 mi).
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.
A supercell is a thunderstorm characterized by the presence of a mesocyclone: a deep, persistently rotating updraft. Due to this, these storms are sometimes referred to as rotating thunderstorms. Of the four classifications of thunderstorms, supercells are the overall least common and have the potential to be the most severe. Supercells are often isolated from other thunderstorms, and can dominate the local weather up to 32 kilometres (20 mi) away. They tend to last 2–4 hours.
A mesocyclone is a meso-gamma mesoscale region of rotation (vortex), typically around 2 to 6 mi in diameter, most often noticed on radar within thunderstorms. In the northern hemisphere it is usually located in the right rear flank of a supercell, or often on the eastern, or leading, flank of a high-precipitation variety of supercell. The area overlaid by a mesocyclone’s circulation may be several miles (km) wide, but substantially larger than any tornado that may develop within it, and it is within mesocyclones that intense tornadoes form.
A squall is a sudden, sharp increase in wind speed lasting minutes, as opposed to a wind gust, which lasts for only seconds. They are usually associated with active weather, such as rain showers, thunderstorms, or heavy snow. Squalls refer to the increase of the sustained winds over that time interval, as there may be higher gusts during a squall event. They usually occur in a region of strong sinking air or cooling in the mid-atmosphere. These force strong localized upward motions at the leading edge of the region of cooling, which then enhances local downward motions just in its wake.
A squall line, or more accurately a quasi-linear convective system (QLCS), is a line of thunderstorms, often forming along or ahead of a cold front. In the early 20th century, the term was used as a synonym for cold front. Linear thunderstorm structures often contain heavy precipitation, hail, frequent lightning, strong straight-line winds, and occasionally tornadoes or waterspouts. Particularly strong straight-line winds can occur where the linear structure forms into the shape of a bow echo. Tornadoes can occur along waves within a line echo wave pattern (LEWP), where mesoscale low-pressure areas are present. Some bow echoes can grow to become derechos as they move swiftly across a large area. On the back edge of the rainband associated with mature squall lines, a wake low can be present, on very rare occasions associated with a heat burst.
A wall cloud is a large, localized, persistent, and often abrupt lowering of cloud that develops beneath the surrounding base of a cumulonimbus cloud and from which tornadoes sometimes form. It is typically beneath the rain-free base (RFB) portion of a thunderstorm, and indicates the area of the strongest updraft within a storm. Rotating wall clouds are an indication of a mesocyclone in a thunderstorm; most strong tornadoes form from these. Many wall clouds do rotate; however, some do not.
A hook echo is a pendant or hook-shaped weather radar signature as part of some supercell thunderstorms. It is found in the lower portions of a storm as air and precipitation flow into a mesocyclone, resulting in a curved feature of reflectivity. The echo is produced by rain, hail, or even debris being wrapped around the supercell. It is one of the classic hallmarks of tornado-producing supercells. The National Weather Service may consider the presence of a hook echo coinciding with a tornado vortex signature as sufficient to justify issuing a tornado warning.
Cyclogenesis is the development or strengthening of cyclonic circulation in the atmosphere. Cyclogenesis is an umbrella term for at least three different processes, all of which result in the development of some sort of cyclone, and at any size from the microscale to the synoptic scale.
A funnel cloud is a funnel-shaped cloud of condensed water droplets, associated with a rotating column of wind and extending from the base of a cloud but not reaching the ground or a water surface. A funnel cloud is usually visible as a cone-shaped or needle like protuberance from the main cloud base. Funnel clouds form most frequently in association with supercell thunderstorms, and are often, but not always, a visual precursor to tornadoes. Funnel clouds are visual phenomena, these are not the vortex of wind itself.
A gustnado is a brief, shallow surface-based vortex which forms within the downburst emanating from a thunderstorm. The name is a portmanteau by elision of "gust front tornado", as gustnadoes form due to non-tornadic straight-line wind features in the downdraft (outflow), specifically within the gust front of strong thunderstorms. Gustnadoes tend to be noticed when the vortices loft sufficient debris or form condensation cloud to be visible although it is the wind that makes the gustnado, similarly to tornadoes. As these eddies very rarely connect from the surface to the cloud base, they are very rarely considered as tornadoes. The gustnado has little in common with tornadoes structurally or dynamically in regard to vertical development, intensity, longevity, or formative process—as classic tornadoes are associated with mesocyclones within the inflow (updraft) of the storm, not the outflow.
The Lemon technique is a method used by meteorologists using weather radar to determine the relative strength of thunderstorm cells in a vertically sheared environment. It is named for Leslie R. Lemon, the co-creator of the current conceptual model of a supercell. The Lemon technique is largely a continuation of work by Keith A. Browning, who first identified and named the supercell.
Landspout is a term created by atmospheric scientist Howard B. Bluestein in 1985 for a tornado not associated with a mesocyclone. The Glossary of Meteorology defines a landspout as
Tornadogenesis is the process by which a tornado forms. There are many types of tornadoes and these vary in methods of formation. Despite ongoing scientific study and high-profile research projects such as VORTEX, tornadogenesis is a volatile process and the intricacies of many of the mechanisms of tornado formation are still poorly understood.
An overshooting top is a dome-like protrusion shooting out of the top of the anvil of a thunderstorm and into the lower stratosphere. When an overshooting top is present for 10 minutes or longer, it is a strong indication that the storm is severe.
Atmospheric convection is the result of a parcel-environment instability, or temperature difference layer in the atmosphere. Different lapse rates within dry and moist air masses lead to instability. Mixing of air during the day which expands the height of the planetary boundary layer leads to increased winds, cumulus cloud development, and decreased surface dew points. Moist convection leads to thunderstorm development, which is often responsible for severe weather throughout the world. Special threats from thunderstorms include hail, downbursts, and tornadoes.
Convective storm detection is the meteorological observation, and short-term prediction, of deep moist convection (DMC). DMC describes atmospheric conditions producing single or clusters of large vertical extension clouds ranging from cumulus congestus to cumulonimbus, the latter producing thunderstorms associated with lightning and thunder. Those two types of clouds can produce severe weather at the surface and aloft.
Inflow is the flow of a fluid into a large collection of that fluid. Within meteorology, inflow normally refers to the influx of warmth and moisture from air within the Earth's atmosphere into storm systems. Extratropical cyclones are fed by inflow focused along their cold front and warm fronts. Tropical cyclones require a large inflow of warmth and moisture from warm oceans in order to develop significantly, mainly within the lowest 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) of the atmosphere. Once the flow of warm and moist air is cut off from thunderstorms and their associated tornadoes, normally by the thunderstorm's own rain-cooled outflow boundary, the storms begin to dissipate. Rear inflow jets behind squall lines act to erode the broad rain shield behind the squall line, and accelerate its forward motion.
A mesovortex is a small-scale rotational feature found in a convective storm, such as a quasi-linear convective system, a supercell, or the eyewall of a tropical cyclone. Mesovortices range in diameter from tens of miles to a mile or less and can be immensely intense.
The following is a glossary of tornado terms. It includes scientific as well as selected informal terminology.