When a cyclone reaches land, it loses the energy of water vapor condensation, which is maximum over the sea. In a tropical cyclone, the energy of condensation comes in impulses. The night impulse is related to the diurnal variation of temperature. The daytime and nighttime surge of condensation is related to gravity (solar tide). For more details, see the dissertation of my graduate student Vadim Doli. Thus, the destruction of a tropical cyclone on land depends on the phase of diurnal and semidiurnal cycles of water vapor condensation. See my question "Why was Hurricane Katrina a disaster in 2005, but Hurricane Rita was not? They had the same energy." Maybe there is another explanation?
We performed calculations for other hurricanes and found that bursts of water vapor condensation occur not only at night but also at noon. Daytime bursts of condensation are associated with a semidiurnal solar tide. It is manifested only at low latitudes and has a different amplitude throughout the month. For this reason, the maximum strengthening of the hurricane occurs once a day, sometimes twice a day. Perhaps Hurricane Katrina made landfall immediately after receiving energy from a condensation flash, and Hurricane Rita vice versa? Unfortunately, I have no data on the time of landfall of these hurricanes. Sincerely, Borуs.
Hurricane Katrina peaked over water on August 28 at 13:00 local time, not at night (this is a drop in atmospheric pressure due to the solar tide). He was an explosive type and gained maximum energy in just 9 hours. This happens when condensation is at its highest at noon and immediately thereafter at midnight. After that, the condensation process continued due to a daily decrease in temperature.
At night, the cyclone received heat, then the heat was converted into motion and on August 29 at 05:40 local time at the Katrina maximum it landed.
Hurricane Rita reached its maximum power over water on August 21 at 21:30 local time (this is condensation during a diurnal drop in temperature). Apparently there was no influx of energy at noon (solar tides become either diurnal or semidiurnal). Two days later, on August 24 at 02:10 local time, Rita, having not yet received the maximum energy of condensation due to a nighttime decrease in temperature, moved to land and lost strength.
Perhaps if Rita had moved to land closer to the morning, her destruction would have been greater.
Look at the graphs from https://hpiers.obspm.fr/. This is a change in the angular velocity of the Earth's rotation and the same without taking into account the tides. With an increase in the speed of rotation of the earth in a tropical zone, the weight of air decreases and convection increases. I haven't yet figured out the connections to the anomalies on August 29 when Hurricane Katrina was devastating New Orleans. Maybe there is an understanding of this coincidence?
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Linguistics
- Composition Studies
- Publication