Abstract
The merging of a fast-moving bow echo with a convective cell of a hook-echo signature was studied by using polarimetric radar detections. Gusts with wind speeds near 35 m s−1 were recorded by the surface station, which caused significant damage. A convective cell with a mesovortex signature, which is hereafter referred to as a mini-supercell, was observed over the northeast of the bow echo before the convective merging. It was found that the mesovortex possessed cyclonic circulation and resembled a supercell-like feature. The merging of the bow echo and the mini-supercell strengthened the updraft near the apex of the bow echo. The enhanced updraft was also demonstrated by the appearance of a differential reflectivity (ZDR) column with a topmost height of 4 km above the melting layer (~4 km). The bow was separated into northern and southern sectors after merging with the mini-supercell, leading to the gusty wind over the surface of the south sector.
Highlights
Convective merging is a common weather phenomenon
Bow echoes usually develop from squall lines and can be formed by merging, for example, the merging of organized convective cells [14] or squall lines merging with a preline convective cell [15,16,17,18]
They noted that a rearinflow notch (RIN) boundary appearing in a bow echo was closely linked to the location of a rear-inflow jet (RIJ) and that notable outflows occurred on the two sides of the RIJ
Summary
Convective merging is a common weather phenomenon. Researchers began to study the merging of convective systems as early as the 1940s [1] and conducted numerous observational studies later on [2,3,4,5,6]. Many studies improved the conceptual model of bow echoes through investigating radar observations and numerical simulation [20,21,22,23,24,25,26] They noted that a rearinflow notch (RIN) boundary appearing in a bow echo was closely linked to the location of a rear-inflow jet (RIJ) and that notable outflows occurred on the two sides of the RIJ. On 30 April 2019, a bow echo intercepted a supercell-like convective cluster (minisupercell) occurring in Southeastern China and merged into a stronger convective system This case is not the same as those studied previously [30,31,32].
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