Tropical Revolving storms
- Created by: xxxxxxx
- Created on: 25-01-15 16:20
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- Tropical Revolving Storms
- An intense low pressure weather system that can develop in the tropics
- Global Distribution
- Occur within 5-20 degrees N/S of the equator.
- No TRS on the equator due to there being no coriolis affect
- They track from West to East, and in the N hemisphere they turn right and in the S hemisphere they turn left
- Conditions needed
- Sea temperature of above 26.5 degrees
- A sea depth of 50 metres
- Life cycle of a tropical revolving storms
- Tropical Disturbance = disorganised area of thunderstorms on the tropics that exists for over 24 hours
- Tropical Depression - a circulating mass of defined cloud and thunderstorms with sustained windstorms
- Tropical Storm = a circulating system of strong thunderstorms with sustained wind speeds
- Tropical revolving storms = a spinning mass of towering clouds producing torrential rain and strong winds
- Formation of a TRS
- TRS are formed when the sun has heated the sea to above 26 degrees, and there is a depth of above 50, this leads to rising air, creating low pressure at the surface, air is continuing to rise as latent heat is released when water vapour changes to droplets,as it rises it starts to cool adiabatically , once the air reaches to top of the troposphere, it diverts N and S, in the N the Coriolis effect makes it turn right and in the S it makes it turn left. Creating a spiral
- Characteristics
- THE EYE
- 20 - 30 metre wide.
- Calmest part of the storm
- As the storm strengthens it shrinks
- Cloud free area, of sinking air and light winds that don't exceed 15mph
- THE EYE WALL
- Completely / Partially surrounds the eye
- Wind speeds of 200mph
- Ring of thunderstorms producing heavy torrential rain and strong winds.
- Most destructive area
- Towering culumbinimous clouds
- Spiral Rainbands
- Bands that trail away from the eye wall in spiral fashion.
- Heavy burst of rain and windfall 1/2 or 2/3 strength of the eyewall.
- Can cause hurricane diameter to extend outwards up to 340 miles
- Thunderstorms become organised in regions of falling and rising air
- Most of the air is rising but their is a small amount fixed in between the thunderstorms sinking
- THE EYE
- Measuring the magnitude
- Management of a TRS
- Reconnaissance Flight
- routine flights taken through the TRS to measure the storms characteristics such as temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed, and location of the eye.
- flights depart from 200 miles away at high altitudes
- The lower the development of the storm the lower the plane can fly
- At high wind speeds the flights penetrate through the calm eye between 3-6 time a trip
- This information is vital for specialists at he Miami hurricane centre to forecast speed, intensity and direction
- 'Dropwindsonde'
- Parachute borne weather centre
- Dropped from a plane and measures the storms characteristics below providing a vertical profile
- Detailed look of the structure
- Records wind speed every 30 seconds
- Sent to the meteorology centre a the Miami hurricane centre
- Sea temperature can be measured by using a network of buoys containing thermometers, you can then use this data to see if this data is warm enough for TRS to develop
- GEOS - geostationary operational environmental satelites
- Continuous monitoring
- necessary for intensive data analysis
- Orbits the equatorial plane of the earth at the same speed of the earths rotation allowing it to hover constantly over one position of the surface
- Positioned 220,000 miles over the earth, high enough for a full disc view of the earth
- When TRS condition develop the satellite are able to monitor storm development and track
- Continuous monitoring
- POES - Polar operational environmental satelite
- daily global coverage
- Polar orbits roughly 14 times a day
- data from this supports a range of environmental applications for example weather analysis, forecasting, research and prediction
- Reconnaissance Flight
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