The fluid dynamics of tornadoes

Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics

Volumn 45, Issue , 2013, Pages 59-84

  Rotunno, Richard ^a  

^a NATIONAL CENTER FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH   (United States)

Author keywords

multiple vortices; supercell; tornado; vortex; vortex breakdown

Indexed keywords

ANALYTICAL TOOL; CONTROLLED CONDITIONS; LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS; NUMERICAL ANALOGS; NUMERICAL EXPERIMENTS; SIMPLE FLUIDS; SUPER CELL; VORTEX BREAKDOWN;

COMPUTER SIMULATION; EXPERIMENTS; FLUID DYNAMICS; TORNADOES;

VORTEX FLOW;

FLUID DYNAMICS; LABORATORY METHOD; NUMERICAL MODEL; QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS; TORNADO; VORTEX;

EID: 84872238591     PISSN: 00664189     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book Series    
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-fluid-011212-140639     Document Type: Review

References (54)

1. Alexander CR, Wurman J. 2008. Updated mobile radar climatology of supercell tornado structures and dynamics. In Proc. 24th Conf. Severe Local Storms, Pap. 19. 4. Boston, MA: Am. Meteorol. Soc.
2. Batchelor GK. 1967. An Introduction to Fluid Dynamics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
3. Benjamin TB. 1962. Theory of vortex breakdown phenomena. J. Fluid Mech. 14:593-629.
4. Bluestein HB. 2007. Advances in applications of the physics of fluids to severe weather systems. Rep. Prog. Phys. 70:1259-323.
5. Bluestein HB, Weiss CC, French MM, Holthaus EM, Tanamachi RL, et al. 2007. The structure of tornadoes. near Attica, Kansas, on 12May 2004: high-resolution, mobile, Doppler radar observations. Mon. Weather. Rev. 135:475-506.
6. Burggraf OR, Stewartson K, Belcher R. 1971. Boundary induced by a potential vortex. Phys. Fluids 14:1821-33.
7. Church CR, Snow JT, Agee EM. 1977. Tornado vortex simulation at Purdue University. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 58:900-8.
8. Church CR, Snow JT, Baker GL, Agee EM. 1979. Characteristics of tornado-like vortices as a function of. swirl ratio: a laboratory investigation. J. Atmos. Sci. 36:1755-76.
9. Davies-Jones RP. 1973. The dependence of core radius on swirl ratio in a tornado simulator. J. Atmos. Sci. 30:1427-30.
10. Davies-Jones RP. 1986. Tornado Dynamics. Norman: Univ. Oklahoma Press.
11. Fiedler BH. 1994. The thermodynamic speed limit and its violation in axisymmetric numerical simulations of. tornado-like vortices. Atmos. Ocean 32:335-59.
12. Fiedler BH. 1995. On modelling tornadoes in isolation from the parent storm. Atmos. Ocean 33:501-12.
13. Fiedler BH. 1998. Wind-speed limits in numerically simulated tornadoes with suction vortices. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. 124:2377-92.
14. Fiedler BH. 2009. Suction vortices and spiral breakdown in numerical simulations of tornado-like vortices. Atmos. Sci. Lett. 10:109-14.
15. Fiedler BH, Garfield GS. 2010. Axisymmetric tornado simulations with various turbulence models. CFD Lett. 2:112-22.
16. Fiedler BH, Rotunno R. 1986. A theory for the maximum windspeeds in tornado-like vortices. J. Atmos. Sci. 43:2328-40.
17. Fujita TT. 1992. The mystery of severe storms. Tech. Rep. 239, Wind Res. Lab., Dep. Geophys. Sci., Univ. Chicago.
18. Harlow FH, Stein LR. 1974. Structural analysis of tornado-like vortices. J. Atmos. Sci. 31:2081-98.
19. Howells PA, Rotunno R, Smith RK. 1988. A comparative study of atmospheric and laboratory-analogue. numerical tornado-vortex models. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. 114:801-22.
20. Klemp JB. 1987. Dynamics of tornadic thunderstorms. Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 19:369-402.
21. Lee WC, Jou BJD, Chang PL, Deng SM. 1999. Tropical cyclone kinematic structure retrieved from single-Doppler radar observations. Part I: interpretation of Doppler velocity patterns and the GBVTD technique. Mon. Weather Rev. 127:2419-39.
22. Lee WC, Wurman J. 2005. Diagnosed three-dimensional axisymmetric structure of the Mulhall tornado on. 3 May 1999. J. Atmos. Sci. 62:2373-93.
23. Leibovich S. 1978. The structure of vortex breakdown. Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 10:221-46.
24. Lewellen DC, Lewellen WS. 2007. Near-surface intensification of tornado vortices. J. Atmos. Sci. 64:2176-94.
25. Lewellen DC, Lewellen WS, Xia J. 2000. The influence of a local swirl ratio on tornado intensification near. the surface. J. Atmos. Sci. 57:527-44.
26. Lewellen WS, Lewellen DC, Sykes RI. 1997. Large-eddy simulation of a tornado's interactionwith the surface. J. Atmos. Sci. 54:581-605.
27. Lewellen WS, Sheng KP. 1981. Modeling tornado dynamics. Final Rep. NTIS NUREG/CR-1585, US Nucl. Regul. Comm., Washington, DC.
28. Lewellen WS, Teske ME. 1977. Turbulent transport model of low levels winds in a tornado. In Proc. 10th. Conf. Severe Local Storms, pp. 291-98. Boston: Am. Meteorol. Soc.
29. Markowski P, Richardson Y. 2010. Mesoscale Meteorology in Midlatitudes. New York: Wiley.
30. Markowski PM, Rasmussen E, Straka J, Davies-Jones R, Richardson Y, Trapp RJ. 2008. Vortex lines within. low-level mesocyclones obtained from pseudo-dual-Doppler radar observations. Mon. Weather Rev. 136:3513-35.
31. Marquis J, Richardson Y, Markowski P, Dowell D, Wurman J. 2012. Tornado maintenance investigated with. high-resolution dual-Doppler and EnKF analysis. Mon. Weather Rev. 140:3-27.
32. Maxworthy T. 1972. On the structure of concentrated, columnar vortices. Astronaut. Acta 17:363-74.
33. Nolan DS. 2005. A new scaling for tornado-like vortices. J. Atmos. Sci. 62:2639-45.
34. Nolan DS. 2012. Three-dimensional instabilities in tornado-like vortices with secondary circulations. J. Fluid. Mech. In press.
35. Nolan DS, Farrell BF. 1999. The structure and dynamics of tornado-like vortices. J. Atmos. Sci. 56:2908-36.
36. Pauley RL, Snow JT. 1988. On the kinematics and dynamics of the 18 July 1986 Minneapolis tornado. Mon. Weather Rev. 116:2731-36.
37. Phillips WRC. 1985. On vortex boundary layers. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 400:253-61.
38. Phillips WRC, Khoo BC. 1987. The boundary layer beneath a Rankine-like vortex. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A. 411:177-92.
39. Rott N, Lewellen WS. 1966. Boundary Layers and Their Interactions in Rotating Flows. New York: Pergamon.
40. Rotunno R. 1977. Numerical simulation of a laboratory vortex. J. Atmos. Sci. 34:1942-56.
41. Rotunno R. 1978. A note on the stability of a cylindrical vortex sheet. J. Fluid Mech. 87:761-71.
42. Rotunno R. 1979. A study in tornado-like vortex dynamics. J. Atmos. Sci. 36:140-55.
43. Rotunno R. 1980. Vorticity dynamics of a convective swirling boundary layer. J. Fluid Mech. 97:623-40.
44. Rotunno R. 1984. An investigation of a three-dimensional asymmetric vortex. J. Atmos. Sci. 41:283-98.
45. Turner JS, Lilly DK. 1963. The carbonated-water tornado vortex. J. Atmos. Sci. 20:468-71.
46. Wakimoto RM, Atkins NT, Wurman J. 2011. The LaGrange tornado during VORTEX2. Part I: photogrammetric. analysis of the tornado combined with single-Doppler radar data. Mon. Weather Rev. 139:2233-58.
47. Walko R, Gall R. 1984. A two-dimensional linear stability analysis of the multiple vortex phenomenon. J. Atmos. Sci. 41:3456-71.
48. Ward NB. 1972. The exploration of certain features of tornado dynamics using a laboratory model. J. Atmos. Sci. 29:1194-204.
49. Wilson T, Rotunno R. 1986. Numerical simulation of a laminar end-wall vortex and boundary layer. Phys. Fluids 29:3993-4005.
50. Wurman J. 2002. The multiple-vortex structure of a tornado. Weather Forecast. 17:473-505.
51. Wurman J, Alexander C, Robinson P, Richardson Y. 2007. Low-level winds in tornadoes and potential catastrophic. tornado impacts in urban areas. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 88:31-46.
52. Wurman J, Dowell D, Richardson Y, Markowski P, Rasmussen E, et al. 2012. The second Verification of the. Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment: VORTEX2. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 93:1147-70.
53. Wurman J, Straka JM, Rasmussen EN. 1996. Fine-scale Doppler radar observations of tornadoes. Science. 272:1774-77.
54. Wyngaard JC. 2010. Turbulence in the Atmosphere. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.