| Random Chaos |
| (Weather Analyst) |
| Thu Sep 04 2008 04:17 PM |
|
Re: Hanna Moving Northwest, Category 4 Hurricane Ike Forms Moving West
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1. Is it possible to have the 3 combine and make 1 big hurricane?
The answer is it is possible. It is called the Fujiwhara effect and occurs when cyclonic vorticies get close together. They begin orbiting each other, and eventually merge. However, in the case of hurricanes, this is extremely unlikely to happen: the shear created by one storm is far more likely to rip the other one apart way before the Fujiwhara effect can happen. Further, even if it did happen, the interactions of the outflows and shearing effects would create a substantially weakened vortex, if the vortex even managed to survive. However, this type of effect can be seen when there are multiple vorticies within a single system during development. (thanks Lee-Delray for your post on the 2nd giving the name of this phenomenon)
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and vice versa..
Not possible. In order for a system to divide into two vortexes, it would have to first lose a single center of circulation and essentially become a broad area of low pressure prior to splitting into multiple vortexes. These vortexes would be weak, and would be naturally pulled back together into a single low pressure by the Fujiwhara effect. Any system that managed to split in the first place wouldn't be considered a hurricane anymore, as it would have become too weak to be such a storm, and the low pressure too undefined.
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2. Can a bigger one push another back or even diminish it?
The size of the storm doesn't matter, only the outflow characteristics and the shear created from each storm. This shear can (and often does) diminish nearby storms.