Objective environmental analyses and convective modes for U. S. tropical cyclone tornadoes from 2003–2008

A gridded, hourly, three-dimensional environmental mesoanalysis database at the Storm Prediction Center (SPC), based on objectively analyzed surface observations blended with the Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) model analysis fields, is applied to a 2003-2008 subset of the SPC tropical cyclone (TC) tornado records presented in a companion study at this conference. We determine distributions of numerous mesoanalytic convective parameters that have been correlated to various extents of supercell and tornado occurrence in the midlatitudes, and evaluate their pertinence to TC tornado occurrence. In particular, we discuss the potential applicability of the mesoanalysis fields to the specific environments of TCs, in both landfalling and inland-decay phases. Radar reflectivity and velocity data also are examined for the same subset of TC tornadoes, in order to determine parent convective modes (i.e., discrete, linear, clustered, supercellular vs. non-supercellular, etc.), and the relationship of those modes to key mesoanalysis parameters.