14.5 Understanding the balance of forces in a long-lived simulated supercell-spawned tornado

Thursday, 30 October 2008: 12:00 AM
North & Center Ballroom (Hilton DeSoto)
Matthew S. Gilmore, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND ; and R. B. Wilhelmson, L. J. Wicker, and G. S. Romine

It is becoming increasingly apparent what near-storm environment (NSE) parameters are favorable for encouraging long-lived tornado-producing supercells and we seek an improved understanding, within a modeling framework, of how these relate to tornado intensity and longevity. Simulated supercell-spawned tornadoes, in papers to date, have been short-lived, shallow, and/or weak. Starting with an extremely favorable NSE, we will show a quasi-steady supercell that spawns a long-lived and strong/deep tornado (82 min; 102 km track; –90 mb pressure drop; >10 km tall) and show our analysis of the circulation budget and balance of forces that maintain this structure. Time permitting; we may also present the initial results of our exploration of how this balance is modulated by variations in the NSE and model physics.
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