The genesis of Hurricane Nate and its interaction with a nearby environment of very dry air

Rutherford, Blake; Dunkerton, Timothy; Montgomery, Michael; Braun, Scott

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-10349-2017

Articles | Volume 17, issue 17

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-10349-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-10349-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 17

Research article

|

04 Sep 2017

Research article |

| 04 Sep 2017

The genesis of Hurricane Nate and its interaction with a nearby environment of very dry air

Blake Rutherford, Timothy Dunkerton, Michael Montgomery, and Scott Braun

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Final revised paper (published on 04 Sep 2017)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 22 Feb 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Mainly technical', Dave Ahijevych, 15 Mar 2017
- AC1: 'Author's responses to review by Dave Ahijevych for ``The genesis of Hurricane Nate and its interaction with a nearby environment of very dry air"', B. Rutherford, 27 Apr 2017
RC2: 'Promising work', Anonymous Referee #2, 21 Mar 2017
- AC2: 'Author's responses to review by Anonymous Referee $\#$2 for ``The genesis of Hurricane Nate and its interaction with a nearby environment of very dry air"', B. Rutherford, 28 Apr 2017
RC3: 'Major revision', Anonymous Referee #3, 24 Mar 2017
- AC3: 'Author's responses to review by Anonymous Referee #3 for ``The genesis of Hurricane Nate and its interaction with a nearby environment of very dry air"', B. Rutherford, 01 May 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by B. Rutherford on behalf of the Authors (24 May 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (28 May 2017) by Heini Wernli

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (08 Jun 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The authors have sufficiently addressed all of my major comments and the manuscript has much improved. A few more minor clarifications and revisions are needed before the final publication of the manuscript.

Best wishes

Minor comments:

* end Section 2: KAM torus needs introduction/ references

* end Section 2: The definition of vortex core (Eq. 4) is unclear. Is there a threshold to be exceeded for the Lagrangian vorticity to qualify as vortex core?
In addition, it should be noted that this is only one of several possible definitions of a vortex core.

* Section 4, 2nd line: Unclear how southerly flow can advect feature of Lee when that system is to the northeast. Please clarify.

* Section 4, 2nd paragraph: The authors have agreed in their response to the first review that discussion of the Eulerian frame is not important here. I thus suggest deleting this paragraph, as it is hardly helpful to the reader without an associated figure anyways.

* caption Fig. 2, first line: M → K

* last sentence in Section 4g: I disagree with the authors statement. To me, a distinct gradient in relative humidity associated with the shear sheath is not evident in Fig. 7c. I suggest deleting the sentence.

* conclusions, third paragraph; “When Nate was a tropical storm in close proximity to dry air, the entrainment of dry air was limited to what was transported by lobes when an enclosed Lagrangian boundary was present.”: The relative role of lobe transport and the direct pathway at 850 hPa is discussed more completely in the paragraph after the enumeration. The simple statement here ignores the role of the direct pathway. I suggest deleting the statement here, as it is incomplete and there is redundancy with the later discussion anyways.

* conclusions, enumeration 1) and 2) suggest an interesting link between the hyperbolic manifolds and the underlying dynamics. Can a similar link be provided for the existence of lobes?

* conclusions, first paragraph after the enumeration: I suggest deleting the reference to the Eulerian streamlines, consistent with elimination of references to an Eulerian frame throughout the revised manuscript.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (13 Jun 2017)

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (13 Jun 2017) by Heini Wernli

AR by B. Rutherford on behalf of the Authors (29 Jun 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (14 Jul 2017) by Heini Wernli

AR by B. Rutherford on behalf of the Authors (22 Jul 2017) Manuscript

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Short summary

Whether a tropical disturbance develops into a tropical cyclone is determined by many factors including whether nearby dry air is able to intrude into the disturbance and disrupt key thermodynamic processes. In this research, we explored a way to diagnose this interaction from a time-evolving rather than instantaneous viewpoint, so that the dry air import can be seen more precisely. We expect that this framework, here applicable to Hurricane Nate (2011), will also apply to other disturbances.