Buoyancy of Convective Vertical Motions in the Inner Core of Intense Hurricanes. Part II: Case Studies

Abstract

Abstract This is the second of two papers on the buoyancy of convective vertical motions in the inner core of intense hurricanes. This paper uses extensive airborne radar, dropwindsonde, and flight-level observations in Hurricanes Guillermo (1997) and Georges (1998) to illustrate typical azimuthal distribution of buoyant convection and demonstrate that the low-level eye can be an important source region for buoyant eyewall convection. In both hurricanes, eyewall vertical velocity and radar reflectivity are asymmetric and exhibit persistent relationships with the direction of the environmental vertical wind shear. Mesoscale vertical motions exhibit a wavenumber-1 structure with maximum ascent downshear and weak descent upshear. The mesoscale reflectivity maxima are located left-of-shear. Buoyant eyewall updraft cores and transient convective-scale reflectivity cells are predominantly downshear and left-of-shear. Most eyewall downdraft cores that transport significant mass downward are located upshear. Negative buoyancy was most common in left-of-shear downdrafts, with positive buoyancy dominant in upshear downdrafts. Inward-spiraling rainbands located outside the eyewall exhibit upband/downband asymmetries. Upband segments contain more convective reflectivity cells and buoyant updraft cores than the more stratiform downband segments. Equal numbers of downdraft cores are found upband and downband, but the majority exhibit negative buoyancy. Several buoyant updraft cores encountered in the midlevel eyewall exhibit equivalent potential temperatures (θe) much higher than the θe observed in the low-level eyewall, but equivalent to the θe observed in the low-level eye. Asymmetric low-wavenumber circulations appear responsible for exporting the high-θe eye air into the relatively low-θe eyewall and generating the locally buoyant updraft cores. Implications of these results upon conceptual models of hurricane structure are discussed. Three mechanisms, whereby an ensemble of asymmetric buoyant convection could contribute to hurricane evolution, are also discussed.