Toward better assessment of tornado potential in typhoons: Significance of considering entrainment effects for CAPE

Abstract

AbstractThe characteristics of typhoons that spawned tornadoes (tornadic typhoons: TTs) in Japan from 1991 to 2013 were investigated by composite analysis using the Japanese 55 year Reanalysis and compared with those of typhoons that did not spawn tornadoes (nontornadic typhoons: NTs). We found that convective available potential energy (CAPE), which considers the effects of entrainment (entraining CAPE: E‐CAPE), and storm‐relative environmental helicity (SREH) are significantly large in the northeast quadrant of TTs where tornadoes frequently occur and that E‐CAPE and SREH in that quadrant for TTs are larger than those for NTs. On the other hand, ordinary CAPE without entrainment does not account for the spatial distribution of tornado occurrences nor does it distinguish TTs from NTs. E‐CAPE is sensitive to humidity in the midtroposphere; thus, it is effective for detecting a conditionally unstable layer up to about 550 hPa, which is distinctive of TTs.