Cyclone and Frontal Structure and Evolution

Professor Cliff MassDepartment of Atmospheric Sciences

University of Washington

For much of the 20th century the dominant paradigm for cyclone/frontal evolution has been the Norwegian Cyclone Model (Bergen School)

Bjernkes, 1919

Concept of Air Flows in Cyclones

Concept of

Evolution of

Cyclones

Bjerknes and Solberg

1922

Stationary Polar Front

Wave Forming on Polar Front

Occlusion as Cold Front Catches Up to Warm Front

Wave Amplifies

Occlusion Lengthens and System Weakens

Warm and Cold Occlusions

Norwegian Cyclone Model (NCM)• It was an important and revolutionary advance at

the time.• First to connect three dimensional trajectories

with clouds and precipitation.• Still found in many textbooks today• Over flat land away from water and terrain,

reality often approximates gross characteristics of the NCM.

• However, there are some major problems with the Norwegian Cyclone model that have been revealed by modern observations and modeling.

Some Problems With The Norwegian Cyclone Model

• Different structures and evolutions of fronts and cyclones often observed over water and over/downstream of mountain barriers.

• Does not properly consider the role of the middle to upper troposphere.

• No upper levels fronts.• Major deficiencies regarding the occlusion

process.• Does not properly consider that cyclogenesis and

frontogenesis occur simultaneously.

Consider one problem area: the occlusion process

Classic Idea: Occlusion Type Determined By Temperature Contrast Behind Cold Front and in

Front of Warm Front (“the temperature rule”

But reality is very different

From Stoelinga et al 2002, BAMS

Literature Review• Schultz and Mass (1993) examined all published cross

sections of occluded fronts. Found no relationship between the relative temperatures on either side of the occluded front and the resulting structure. Of 25 cross sections, only three were cold-type occlusions.

• Of these three, one was a schematic without any actual data, one had a weak warm front, and one could be reanalyzed as a warm-type occlusion

• Cold-type occlusions appear rare.

But what controls the slope?

• Virtually all fronts are first-order fronts (which the horizontal temperature gradient changes discontinuously with frontal passage) rather than zero-order fronts (where temperature varies discontinuously across the front)

• Historical note: in the original Norwegian Cyclone Model they suggested all fronts were zero-order fronts.

Basic Relationship

The relative value of the vertical potential temperature derivative will determine the slope

• Occluded frontal surfaces generally mark a maximum in potential temperature on a horizontal surface, so the numerator on the right side of (2) is always positive.

• Therefore, the sign of the slope of the occluded front is determined only by the denominator on the right-hand side of (2), that is, only by the static stability contrast across the front, and not by the contrast in horizontal potential temperature gradient.

An Improved View: The Static Stability Rule of Occluded Front Slope

• An occluded front slopes over the statically more stable air, not the colder air. – A cold occlusion results when the statically more

stable air is behind the cold front. – When the statically more stable air lies ahead of

the warm front, a warm occlusion is formed.

An Example

Another Example

According to the Norwegian Cyclone Model Cyclones Begin to Weaken When They Start to

Occlude

• In reality, observations often show that cyclones continue to deepen for many hours after the formation of the occluded front, reaching central pressures many hPa deeper than at the time often occluded-front formation.

• Example: 29 of the 91 northeast United States cyclones for which surface analyses appear in Volume 2 of Kocin and Uccellini (2004) deepen 8–24 mb during the 12–24 h after formation of the occluded front

Intensification after Occluded Frontogeneis

• This makes sense since cyclogenesis depends on three-dimensional dynamics and dynamics.

• Such mechanisms for cyclogenesis can be undertood from quasigeostrophic, Petterssen–Sutcliffe development theory, baroclinic instability ideas, or potential-vorticity.

Is Frontal Catch-Up the Essential Characteristic of Occluded Front

Development?• Not all occluded fronts developed from the

cold fronts overtaking warming fronts.• Far more fundamental is the distortion of

warm and cold air by vortex circulations.

Even in a nondivergent barotropic model where “isotherms” are passively advected by the flow, occluded-like warm-air and cold-

air tongues can develop

Occlusion

• This gradient in tangential wind speed takes the initially straight isotherms and differentially rotates them.

• The differential rotation of the isotherms increases the gradient (i.e., frontogenesis)

• The lengthening and spiraling of the isotherms brings the cold- and warm-air tongues closer

Oceanic Cyclone Structure

Shapiro-Keyser Model of Oceanic Cyclones

Major Elements of S-K Model• Weak cold front• Northern part of cold front is very weak (“fractured”)• Not much evidence of classis occlusion (well defined

tongue of warm air projected to low center).• “T-Bone” structure: cold front intersects the warms

front at approximately a right angle• Strong back bent (or bent back) warm front.• Warm air seclusion near the low center.

Simulation of the QE-II Storm

NeimanandShapiro1993

Air-Sea Interactions Warm the Cold Air, Weakening the Cold Front

Cross Section Across Cold Front

Cross Section Across Warm Front

WarmSeclusion

Stage

Cross Section Across Warm Front and Associated Low-level Jet

Cross Section Across Warm-Air Seclusion: Circulation Weakens With Height

Strongest Winds With Back-Bent Warm Front

The Norwegian Cyclone Model Was Developed over the Eastern Atlantic and Europe, Might Development be

Different In Other Midlatitude Locations Where the Large Scale Flow

is Different?

Diffluent

Confluent

Confluent Diffluent

There is considerable literature demonstrating different cyclone-

frontal evolutions in differing synoptic environments.

Confluent versus diffluent synoptic flow

• The Norwegian Cyclone model was developed in a region of generally diffluent flow (eastern Atlantic and Europe).

• How does confluent and diffluent flow influence evolution?

Add a vortex to various synoptic flows and simulate the thermal evolution

Just Vortex

Confluence-Like Western Side of Oceans

Looks Like Shapiro-Keyser Model of Oceanic Cyclones

• S-K developed over western oceans during the Erica field experiment.

• Fractured cold front, strong bent-back warm/occluded front.

Summary

Diffluent Flow

Confluent Flow

• Strong cold front and weaker warm front• Resembles Norwegian Cyclone Model (NCM)• NCM devised over a region of confluent flow.

Summary

LC1 and LC2 Cyclone Evolutions: The Influence of Changing the Horizontal

Shear Across the Midlatitude Jet

Primitive Equation Model Run with Two Shear Profiles

LC1 LC2

LC1

LC2

LC1 and LC2 Cyclone Evolutions

• The LC1 is more comparable to the Norwegian lifecycle with strong temperature gradients in the cold frontal region. The cold front eventually pinches off the warm sector, which decreases in area reminiscent of a Norwegian occlusion.

• In LC2 one sees the effects of stronger cyclonic mean shear. The strongest temperature gradients in the warm frontal zone with warm-core seclusion occurs as baroclinicity associated with the extended bent-back warm front encircles the low-pressure center.

Major Mountain Barriers and Land/Water Configurations Can Have a

Large Impact on Cyclone and Frontal Structures

How Does Different Drag Between Ocean and Land Change Cyclone and

Frontal Structures?

Adiabatic, Primitive Equation Model

Ocean Drag Land Drag

The Impact of Mountains Barriers on Cyclone Structure

• Major topographic barriers can have a profound influence on cyclone and frontal structure.

• Barriers destroy low level front structures, weaken cyclone circulations, create new structures (e.g., lee troughs and windward ridges), and restricts the motions of cold and warm air.

Question: What Does China and the U.S. have in common with

respect to topographic influence?

Consider the U.S. Impacts

• When flow is relatively zonal synoptic structures are greatly changed over and downstream of the Rockies.

• Takes roughly 1000 km for structures to appear more “classical”

• Classic reference: Palmen and Newton (1969)

Steenburgh and Mass (Mon. Wea. Rev., 1994)

• Detailed modeling study of the cyclone/frontal development east of the Rockies.

Conceptual Model

Cold Fronts Aloft And Forward Tilting Frontal Zones

Dry Lines

or

Dry Lines• Associated with large horizontal gradients in

moisture, but not necessarily temperature.• Results from the interaction of cyclones and fronts

with large-scale terrain.• Found over the U.S. Midwest, northern India,

China, central West Africa and other locations.• Acts as a focus for convection, and particularly

severe convection.• Most prevalent during spring/early summer in U.S.

Dry Line• Surface boundary between warm, moist air

and hot, dry air.Surface dry line

Inversion or cap

Well-mixed warm air

Typical Dryline

Temperatures indegrees Celsius

©1993 Oxford University Press -- From: Bluestein, Synoptic-DynamicMeteorology in Midlatitudes, Volume II

Southern Plains Dry

Line

Temperatures indegrees Celsius

©1993 Oxford University Press -- From: Bluestein,

Synoptic-DynamicMeteorology in Midlatitudes,

Volume II

Dry Line

Trajectories

• Fundamentally the dry line represents a trajectory discontinuity between moist southerly flow and flow descending from higher elevations.

• Can only happen relatively close to the upstream barrier (no more than 1000 km) since otherwise air would swing southward behind the low system and thus would be cool and somewhat moist.

L

DRY LINE

Warm, Moist

L

NODRY LINE—Get ColdFront

Indian Dryline

Dew Point Gradients Associated with Indian Dry Line

Dry Line: Tends to Move Eastward During the Day and Westward At

Night• After sunrise, the sun will warm the surface

which will warm the air near the ground.• This air will mix with the air above the ground.• Since the air above the moist layer is dry (and

is much larger than the moist layer), the mixed air will dry out.

• The dry line boundary will progress toward the deeper moisture.

Dry Line

Warm, Moist Air

Hot, Dry Air—Usually Well MixedTop of moist layer

before mixing

Boundary after mixing

Initial Positionof the Dry Line

Position of theDry Line after

mixing

Dry Line• After sunset, a nocturnal inversion forms and the

winds in the moist air respond to surface pressure features.

• The dry line may progress back toward the west .

West East

Note weak inversion or “cap” over low-level moist layer east of the surface dry line

Sounding West of

the Dryline

NCAR

Very Dry

West Winds

Albuquerque, NM12Z -- 26 June 1998

Sounding East of the

Dryline

NCAR

Moist

South Winds

Oklahoma City, OK12Z -- 26 June 1998

Aircraft Study of the Dry Line

Convection Tends to Focus On the Dryline

Simulation of a Thunderstorm Initiation Along Dryline in TX Panhandle

Storm

Note converging winds and risingmotion

Storm Initiation Along a Dry Line

Why is a dry line conducive for strong convection?

• Low level confluence and convergence produce upward motion.

• The cap allows the build-up of large values of Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE)

• East of the surface dry line, the existence of a layer of dry air over moist air enhances convective/potential instability.

Greatest Potential for Convective Development Exists at the

Intersection between the Dry Line and Approaching Cold Front