A numerical study of Hurricane Erin (2001). Part II: Shear and the organization of eyewall vertical motion

A high-resolution numerical simulation of Hurricane Erin (2001) is used to examine the organization of vertical motion in the eyewall and how that organization responds to a large and rapid increase in the environmental vertical wind shear and subsequent decrease in shear. During the early intensification period, prior to the onset of significant shear, the upward motion in the eyewall was concentrated in small-scale convective updrafts that formed in association with regions of Concentrated vorticity (herein termed mesovortices) with no preferred formation region around the eyewall. Asymmetric flow within the eve was weak. As the shear increased, an azimuthal wavenumber-1 asymmetry in storm structure developed with updrafts tending to occur on the downshear to downshear-left side of the eyewall. Continued intensification of the shear led to increasing wavenumber-1 asymmetry, large vortex tilt, and a change in eyewall structure and vertical motion organization. During this time, the eyewall structure was dominated by a vortex couplet with a cyclonic (anticyclonic) vortex on the downtilt-left (downtilt-right) side of the eyewall and strong asymmetric flow across the eye that led to strong mixing of eyewall vorticity into the eye. Upward motion was concentrated over an azimuthally broader region on the downtilt side of the eyewall, upstream of the cyclonic, vortex, where low-level environmental inflow converged with the asymmetric outflow from the eye. As the shear diminished, the vortex tilt and wavenumber-1 asymmetry decreased, while the organization of updrafts trended back toward that seen during the weak shear period. Based upon the results for the Erin case, as well as that for a similar simulation of Hurricane Bonnie (1998), a conceptual model is developed for the organization of vertical motion in the eyewall as a function of the strength of the vertical wind shear. In weak to moderate shear, higher wavenumber asymmetries associated with eyewall mesovortices dominate the wavenumber-1 asymmetry associated with the shear so that convective-scale updrafts form when the mesovortices move into the downtilt side of the eyewall and dissipate on the uptilt side. Under strong shear conditions, the wavenumber-1 asymmetry, characterized by a prominent vortex couplet in the eyewall, dominates the vertical motion organization so that mesoscale ascent (with embedded convection) occurs over an azimuthally broader region on the downtilt side of the eyewall. Further research is needed to determine if these results apply more generally.