Author Topic: CAPE and Windshear questions  (Read 14476 times)

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Offline Dave Nelson

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CAPE and Windshear questions
« on: 30 December 2006, 03:53:03 PM »
 Greetings gang,

  just as an intro .....
Jimmy added this section to hopefully fill a niche for those of us that are not so versed in the deeper understandings of various meteorological terms and conditions.
  With that in mind I would like to get some feedback on some things spoken about in "The CAPE Debate"
in another section of the forum.

to quote Dave C ....
 " In addition to thermodynamic instability, vertical windshear is also important -- you can't exclude either since there is a sort of inverse relationship between the two. ie higher-end CAPE and weaker vertical windshear can produce supercells as can lower-end CAPE and stronger vertical windshear. "

OK questions ....
 1) why is there this inverse relationship between the two ?

 2)  could "vertical windshear"  be clarified   and could I identify its presence visually during the cell growth ?

 3)  several times on various forums I have seen the term   "CIN"  used   what is that  ?   haven't found reference
      to it in any of the glossaries I have looked through.

thanks 
Dave N   :)

« Last Edit: 02 January 2007, 10:32:47 AM by Dave Nelson »

Offline David C

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Re: CAPE and Windshear questions
« Reply #1 on: 30 December 2006, 06:32:09 PM »

OK questions ....
 1) why is there this inverse relationship between the two ?

 2)  could "vertical windshear"  be clarified   and could I identify its presence visually during the cell growth ?

 3)  several times on various forums I have seen the term   "CIN"  used   what is that  ?   haven't found reference
      to it in any of the glossaries I have looked through.

thanks 
Dave N   :)


Hi Dave,

my several cents worth:

(1) My use of 'inverse relationship' is probably a bit misleading - 'compensatory effects' might have been a better way to put it.
 
Scatter plots (CAPE v Windshear') of past events have revealed the relationship between these parameters that I mentioned (an example attached). The reasoning behind this, in fairly simple terms is:

Higher values of CAPE (or, let's say a lower lifted index (more negative)) would promote a stonger updraft resulting in more vertical stretching (the ballerina analogy is useful to think of here), hence leading to more rotation on the storm scale for a given amount of ambient vertical wind shear.

At the other end of the spectrum, when the surface through to 6km windshear exceeds approximately 50 knots, an updraft will tend to rotate as a result of horizontal vorticity being tilted into the vertical. A product of this mid-level rotation is the development of a pressure pertubation gradient, a dynamic effect that increases with the amount of rotation (I discussed this over on TWZ in the thread on storms in the top-end and extratropics). This is a kind of feedback mechanism whereby the strengthening updraft lowers the pressure in the mid-levels which in turn further strengthens the updraft - this dynamic effects is equally as important , if not more important than buoyancy alone if determining updraft strength and rotation.

(2) Windshear refers to a change in winds (speed and / or direction) with height. It is revealed when clouds at different altitudes are seen to be moving in different directions. With respect to cell growth, vertical windshear might be revealed as towers which 'lean' downshear.

(3) CIN = Convective Inhibition. On a skew-T plot, CAPE reflects positive buoyancy, CIN reflects negative buoyancy (anyone feel free to post a skew-t here to illustrate this!)
« Last Edit: 31 December 2006, 01:15:33 AM by Jimmy Deguara »
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Re: CAPE and Windshear questions
« Reply #2 on: 01 January 2007, 05:51:27 AM »
John I think you missed the point of Daves comment about the relationship between cape & shear. I don't think Dave was suggesting that supercells can only form in either high cape/low shear or high shear/low cape enviroments.

He was i believe suggesting that vertical stretching in high cape/low shear enviroments creates rotation in the updraft without the need of windshear.

You can go no further for an example of this than May 27th 1997 in Texas.

Offline David C

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Re: CAPE and Windshear questions
« Reply #3 on: 02 January 2007, 06:22:42 AM »
Hi Jeff,  ta, indeed that's what I meant (and thought I clarified in the above post  ;D).


NB: Dave C Youd better carefully mention what downshear is...dont want to get it sheared the wrong way round.

I can see I'll have to become more discerning in my choice of words  :P

John, what I'm saying is that since westerly momentum usually increases with height here in the mid-latitudes, new convection will tend to lean in a downshear (forward) direction. We haven't yet really discussed vorticity which you more or less eluded to in your notes on windshear.....if that's where you're going you are most welcome to start the discussion!

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Offline Dave Nelson

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Re: CAPE and Windshear questions
« Reply #4 on: 02 January 2007, 10:31:31 AM »
 Thanks guys,
  happy new year to all  :)

   am learning lots from your combined answers. Appreciate your thoughts.

 on one day in NW Texas and Oklahoma (May 26, 2006)  I saw the creation of a good few orphaned
anvils soon after their formation.
  At the time I attributed this maybe to the lack of significant updraught/convection to sustain
the anvil creation. As the afternoon progressed convection improved and we had numerous individual
cells to chase.

look forward to more Q's  :)

cheers
Dave N

Offline David C

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Re: CAPE and Windshear questions
« Reply #5 on: 02 January 2007, 04:21:34 PM »
Good stuff John. If you have time, would you be able to explain that in more detail - as soon as you mention 'frame of reference' I think there are some puzzled faces browsing the forum :)  I think we should keep this discussion going forward and as I said delve into vorticity and other aspects that will help storm chasers, who dont have a extensive physics background (including me), to understand some of the key physical processes (without going into the Navier-Stokes equations :) ). Good stuff!!
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Offline Mike

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Re: CAPE and Windshear questions
« Reply #6 on: 31 May 2007, 11:15:29 AM »
Just a thought: In a CAPE environment of 5000 and LIs in the extreme -8 and beyond is the atmosphere that 'thick' so to speak that one can actually feel it?  Is the environment similar to the feel of tropical humidity or what?

Was just thinking about it and decided to ask. 

Mike

Edited starting comment
« Last Edit: 31 May 2007, 05:57:00 PM by Jimmy Deguara »
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