Structure and maintenance of squall lines:

A historical overview

Robert FovellUCLA Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences

rfovell@ucla.edu

Scope and Objectives

• Historical overview

• “Broken lines” of “ordinary cells” having trailing stratiform precipitation

• Evolution of squall line conceptual models

• Conceptual models of squall line evolution, structure and behavior

Definition of “squall line”

• Glossary of Meteorology (2000):

“a line of active thunderstorms, either continuous or with breaks, including contiguous precipitation areas resulting from the existence of thunderstorms.”

Newton and Newton (1959)

• “[A] squall line generally consist[s] of a large number of thunderstorm cells” with lifetime ~30 min

• “[C]ontinuous formation of new cells is necessary” created via “successive triggering… by lifting of unstable air over a [rain-produced] ‘pseudo-cold front’”

Characteristics

• Long-lived

• Unsteady and multicellular

• Evaporationally-produced subcloud cold pools

• Cold pool is principal propagation mechanism

8 July 2003, Lincoln, NE

A modern conceptual model(e.g., Houze et al. 1989)

Squall line vertical x-section

Squall line vertical x-section

Squall line vertical x-section

Storm-relative flow in storm and far-field;note non-constant shear and upshear tilt

Squall line vertical x-section

Radar echo envelope

Squall line vertical x-section

Principal echo features; implied multicellularity

Squall line vertical x-section

Principal pressure perturbations

Conceptual model of a “trailing stratiform” (TS) squall

line

Houze et al. (1989)

Evolution of squall line conceptual models

An isolated “ordinary cell”

Ludlam (1963)

Thunderstorm life cycle

• The Thunderstorm Project (Braham’s reminiscence)– Aug. 1940: DC-3 crash killed Minnesota senator during

storm– 1944: Civil Aeronautics Board called for study of storm air

motions, after another DC-3 lost lift– Jan. 1945: HR 164 authorized Weather Bureau to study

thunderstorm causes, characteristics (didn’t become law)– End of WWII provided the planes and personnel– Project based in Orlando in 1946, Ohio in 1947 (based on

storm frequency and military base proximity)

Stages of isolated t-storm

T-storm Project

T-storms not always isolated

U = updraftD = downdraft

T-storm Project

Horizontal cross-section

Early models of squall circulation

Newton (1963)

Early models of squall circulation

“[T]he downdraft is drawn as continuous fromcloud top to base for the sake of discussion, thoughthere are inadequate observations to verify whether

this is typical.”

Newton (1963)

Newton (1966)

Early models of squall circulation

“[N]o appreciable portion of the updraft airis likely to descend again to the lower troposphere.”

Zipser’s (1977) model

(reversed for midlatitude context)

Zipser’s (1977) model

Transience permits this in 2D (e.g., Rotunno et al. 1988;Fovell and Ogura 1988)

Zipser’s (1977) model

Inflow layer overturns in “crossover zone”

Layer lifting

Bryan and Fritsch (2000)

“Moist absolutely unstable layer” (MAUL)

Pressure perturbations in and near squall lines

LeMone et al. (1984)

Both buoyancy and dynamic pressure contribute,dominated by former (Fovell and Ogura 1988)

Pressure perturbations in and near squall lines

Fujita (1963)

Mesohigh and wake low

Fujita (1955)

Mesohigh and wake low

Johnson and Hamilton (1988)

Fujita (1955)

Pre-squall low

Hoxit et al. (1977)

Pre-squall low ascribed to subsidence warming.

Rear inflow current

Pandya and Durran (1996)

Rear inflow current

Colored field: temperature perturbation;Contoured field: horizontal velocity perturbation

Rear inflow current

Rear inflow current

Pandya and Durran (1996)

Rear inflow current

Pandya and Durran (1996)

The multicell storm

Browning et al. (1976)Four cells at a single timeOr a single cell at four times

The multicell storm

Browning et al. (1976)

Fovell and Tan (1998)

Unsteadiness representsepisodic entrainment owingto local buoyancy-inducedcirculations.

Life cycle of a tropicalsquall line

Leary and Houze (1979)

The severe squall line environment

From 10 years of severe spring Oklahoma stormsBluestein and Jain (1985)

The severe squall line environment

The severe squall line environment

Similar in tropical squall lines (below 4 km);e.g., Barnes and Sieckman (1984)

Conceptual models of squall line evolution, initiation, and

maintenance

Some questions(leading to very incomplete answers)

• How are pre-frontal squall lines initiated?

• Is a squall line self-maintaining?

• Why does the storm updraft airflow lean upshear?

• What determines how strong a storm can be?

Cold pool and vertical shear

• Cold pool and shear are irrelevant

• Cold pool good, shear bad

• Cold pool good, shear good

• Cold pool bad, shear bad, but combination may be good

Tepper (1950)

“[S]quall lines are propagated pressure jump lines, whose genesis, propagation and destruction

are independent of the precipitation which they themselves produce.”

“Consequently in following a squall lineacross the country, it is most important to

follow the progress of the pressure jump line,And not… the line of convective activity.”

Tepper (1950)

(Figure augmented)

Newton (1950)

“[T]he air above the warm-sector inversion,if one is present, is usually relatively dry

and a great amount of lifting would be required…”

Cold pools are “insufficient to wholly explainthe maintenance of squall-line activity

since it is frequently observed that large rain-cooledareas [persist] after squall-line activity dissipates”

On shear

“It is remarkable that in spite of the marked vertical wind shears associated with squall-storms, they are long-lived, often travelling long distances

at rather uniform speed”

Ludlam (1963)

A role of strong shear?

Newton and Newton (1959)

“Upshear” tilt

Ludlam (1963),via Rotunno et al. (1988)

Early numerical experiments

Hane (1973)

2D model initialized with moderate shear

Hane (1973)

Hane (1973)

Hane (1973)

Hane (1973)

Hane (1973)

Hane (1973)

Hane (1973)

Hane (1973)

Hane (1973)

“[T]he system, rather than reaching a quasi-steady state,undergoes a series of developments…” owing to

the “adverse effects” of 2D

Hane (1973)

[T]he squall line thunderstorm, once initiated, maintains itself”…as long as it remains in a favorable environment.

Discussion of Hane (1973)

• Convection strong prior to cold pool development

• Storm weaker, more intermittent after pool appearance

• Upshear tilt

Thorpe et al. (1983)

2D model

Thorpe et al. (1983)

Steadiest storm, most precipitation(amount and intensity)

Thorpe et al. (1983)

This nearly steady storm “required strong low-levelshear to prevent the upstream gust front from propagating

rapidly away from the storm.”

Thorpe et al. (1983)

This nearly steady storm “required strong low-levelshear to prevent the upstream gust front from propagating

rapidly away from the storm.”

RKW theory

Rotunno et al. (1988)

“Cold pool bad, shear bad,But combination may be good.”

My take on RKW theory:Cold pool not an unalloyed good;

lifting comes at a price

A garden-variety multicell storm

Cold pool experiment(‘no-cloud cloud model’)

Control run

Deactivate evaporationcooling

Clouds without cold pool lifting

Crook and Moncrieff (1988)

Cell initiation by trapped gravity waves

Fovell et al. (2006)

Summary

• Historical overview (incomplete)

• Modern conceptual model of a TS squall line

• Evolution of squall line conceptual models

• Conceptual models of squall line evolution

end

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Other squall-type configurations

Parker and Johnson (2000)