Phys.org June 27, 2024 Central North America is the global hotspot for tornadoes, fueled by elevated terrain of the Rockies to the west and a source of warm, moist air from equatorward oceans. Based on this theory central South America, with the Andes to the west and Amazon basin to the north, should have a “tornado alley” at least as active as central North America. Central South America has frequent severe thunderstorms yet relatively few tornadoes. According to a team of researchers in the US (Purdue University, National Center for Atmospheric Researchers, (Boulder, CO), Stony Brook University, Colorado State University) […]
Tag Archives: Storms
Tropical storms signaled by atmospheric waves, study finds
Phys.org February 7, 2023 Understanding and prediction of tropical cyclone (TC) activity on the medium range remains challenging. Researchers in the UK found that the pre-existing westward-moving equatorial waves can inform the risk of TC occurrence and intensification, based on a dataset obtained by synchronising objectively identified TCs and equatorial waves in a climate reanalysis. Globally, westward-moving equatorial waves can be precursors to 60–70% of pre-tropical cyclogenesis events, and to >80% of the events with the strongest vorticity, related to the favourable environmental conditions within the pouch of equatorial waves. They also found that when storms are in-phase with westward-moving […]