The Boundary Layer of Tropical Cyclone Kerry (1979)

The boundary layer structure of Tropical Cyclone Kerry (1979) is investigated using composite analysis of research aircraft, surface ship, and automatic weather station observations. The boundary layer was moist, convective, and strongly confluent to the east of the tropical cyclone center but was dry, subsident, and diffluent to the west. The vertical momentum transport in the eastern convective sector of Kerry was around two to three times the surface frictional dissipation. In contrast, the stable boundary layer in the western sector consisted of a shallow mixed layer capped by an equivalent potential temperature minimum and a low-level jet, which underwent a marked diurnal oscillation. Three mechanisms appear to have contributed to the observed asymmetry: 1) a general, zonal distortion arose from cyclonic rotation across a gradient of earth vorticity; 2) a westerly environmental vertical shear produced forced ascent on the east side of the storm and subsidence on the west side throughout the lower and midtroposphere; and 3) the western sector boundary layer was modified by an upstream cold tongue generated by the tropical cyclone passage. The authors present evidence that substantial drying also resulted from shear-induced mixing of the subsident environmental air in the region of the low-level jet. Thermal boundary layer budgets are derived using both a general mixing theory approach and direct flux calculations from aircraft reconnaissance data. Use of actual sea surface temperature fields are essential. The surface flux estimates of latent heat are near the average of previous studies, but the sensible heat fluxes are downward into the ocean. Since horizontal advection also cooled the boundary layer, the thermal structure was maintained by downward fluxes of sensible heat from the top of the boundary layer of around 100 W m−2. We conclude that the pattern of oceanic cooling directly determines the pattern of vertical air-sea and advective sensible heat fluxes and indirectly determines the pattern of latent heat fluxes through forcing of PBL drying at the downwind end of the SST cold pool. It further enhances the inward penetration and negative feedback resulting from an easterly trade wind surge associated with a mobile trough in the westerlies.