How can one storm system produce so much rain?
Our team of meteorologists was watching in awe last week as a storm system which was all but written off as a cluster of showers over the Gulf of Mexico turned into a monster hurricane in about 48 hours.
Harvey is a name that will be remembered for a long time and the storm is not over yet. The pictures we have witnessed from Texas of the damage and flooding have been incredible and heartbreaking. Our thoughts and prayers seem to be not enough to help those impacted by this awful storm.
But how did this happen? How did a cluster of showers turn into such a devastating force of nature?
The answer has to do with the “heat engine” of a hurricane. Tropical systems are much different than your average mid-latitude cyclones we see here in the Miami Valley that have a warm and a cold front with warm and cold air advection (it typically gets cooler after a storm system moves by). This type of storm system is what we call a “cold-core” system, in that the center of the low-pressure system is colder than the rest of the system. Coldcore storm systems need wind shear and usually the jet stream to help intensify them.
Tropical systems are what we call “warm-cored” low-pressure systems. As the name would suggest, the center of tropical storms, hurricanes or typhoons are warmer than the rest of the system. They also do not have a cold front or a warm front. These types of systems do not need wind shear or the jet stream to intensify. In fact, even a little wind shear would tear these storms apart.
Tropical systems are purely fueled by the warm ocean water instead of by wind energy and temperature advection. Think of the ocean as a tank of gasoline. Now think of the ocean temperature as being the octane of the