Effects of environmental shear and buoyancy on simulated supercell interactions

Interactions between storm cells can have an impact on a cell's severity and evolution. Several studies using both radar observations and numerical models have investigated these impacts. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the impact of storm environments (i.e., local vertical profiles of wind shear and buoyancy) on the outcome of storm cell interactions. A suite of idealized WRF simulations using varied buoyancy and shear profiles and initial storm pair characteristics will be utilized. Comparisons will be made between the straight hodograph case and cases with increasing low-level (0-3 km) hodograph curvature. For each hodograph, three buoyancy profiles will be run. The analysis will focus on storm structure, updraft intensity, and low-level rotational characteristics.