Investigation of Vortex Profiles via Vortex Mergers

In atmospheric research, explicit assumptions are often made on the shapes of velocity and vorticity profiles of axisymmetric tornado-like flows. We undertake a two-dimensional numerical study in which several initial configurations of point vortices, approximating Rankine-combined vortex blobs, are developed using the Hamiltonian equations until a nearly steady state is achieved. The resulting vorticity and velocity configurations are studied and demonstrate an r^b type of a decay of velocity with -1 < b < 0.