Wednesday, 9 November 2016: 2:30 PM
Pavilion Ballroom East (Hilton Portland )
While low-level (nominally 0-1 km) environmental kinematic and thermodynamic properties have been shown to have some skill in discriminating between tornadic and nontornadic supercells, a growing body of work suggests that aspects of the near-storm environment (e.g., the wind profile, temperature lapse rate, surface roughness, soil moisture, and low-level relative humidity) in even shallower layers (<500 m) may be important in supercell tornadogenesis. Supercell thunderstorms are simulated with and without full surface physics in idealized environments varying surface and near-surface (i.e., surface layer) characteristics that may affect both the ambient and internal flow within the storms. The effects of horizontal variations in surface-layer characteristics on supercell dynamics will also be explored. Results from this and previous studies examining the effects of shallow changes in the near-storm environment on both observed and simulated storms will be presented.
![](images/flag.png)
![](images/blue_ribbon.png)