This question has been the motivation for the pioneering work of Simpson (1958) and further investigation by Willoughby (1998). This study further examines this topic with the investigation of the interaction between eye and eyewall air in a high-resolution simulation of Hurricane Bonnie (1998). The method of analysis involves the computation of several thousand three-dimensional Lagrangian trajectory particles seeded throughout the eye and eyewall regions of the system. The high number of trajectories is chosen in order to gather a "census" of the behavior and thermodynamic properties of air parcels in various regions of the mature system.

In this presentation, the goal is to determine to what extent the hurricane eye can be considered a "containment vessel". Considerable attention will be given to the thermodynamic properties of the trajectories, most notably the equivalent potential temperature associated with the trajectories. The question we wish to answer is whether and to what extent high equivalent potential temperature contained in the moist boundary layer of the eye is being mixed into the eyewall region (as shown in Braun 2002). Conversely, to what extent is equivalent potential temperature in the eyewall "leaking" into the eye? The answers to these questions and further details will be reported in the presentation.