The Dynamics of Vortex Rossby Waves and Secondary Eyewall Development in Hurricane Matthew (2016): New Insights from Radar Measurements

Abstract

The structure of vortex Rossby waves (VRWs) and their role in the development of a secondary eyewall in Hurricane Matthew (2016) is examined from observations taken during the NOAA Sensing Hazards with Operational Unmanned Technology (SHOUT) field experiment. Radar measurements from ground-based and airborne systems, with a focus on the NASA High-Altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler (HIWRAP) instrument on the Global Hawk aircraft, revealed the presence of ~12–15-km-wavelength spiral bands breaking from the inner-core eyewall in the downshear-right quadrant. The vorticity characteristics and calculations of the intrinsic phase speeds of the bands are shown to be consistent with sheared VRWs. A new angular momentum budget methodology is presented that allows an understanding of the secondary eyewall development process with narrow-swath radar measurements. Filtering of the governing equations enables explicit insight into the nonlinear dynamics of scale interactions and the role of the VRWs in the storm structure change. The results indicate that the large-scale (scales > 15 km) vertical flux convergence of angular momentum associated with the VRWs dominates the time tendency with smaller effects from the radial flux term. The small-scale (scales ≤ 15 km) vertical term produces weak, but nonnegligible nonlinear forcing of the large scales primarily through the Reynolds and cross-stress components. The projection of the wave kinematics onto the low-wavenumber (0 and 1) fields appears to be the more significant dynamic process. Flight-level observations show secondary peaks in tangential winds in the radial region where the VRW forcing signatures are active, connecting them with the secondary eyewall formation process.