Comparative Analysis of the Generalized Omega Equation and Generalized Vertical Motion Equation

Research on vertical motion in mesoscale systems is an extraordinarily challenging effort.Allowing for fewer assumptions,a new form of generalized vertical motion equation and a generalized Omega equation are derived in the Cartesian coordinate system(nonhydrostatic equilibrium)and the isobaric coordinate system(hydrostatic equilibrium),respectively.The terms on the right-hand side of the equations,which comprise the Q vector,are composed of three factors:dynamic,thermodynamic,and mass.A heavy rain event that occurred from 18 to 19 July 2021 in southern Xinjiang was selected to analyze the characteristics of the diagnostic variable in the generalized vertical motion equation(Qz)and the diagnostic variable in the generalized Omega equation(Qp)using high-resolution model data.The results show that the horizontal distribution of the Qz-vector divergence at 5.5 km is roughly similar to the distribution of the Qp-vector divergence at 500 hPa,and that both relate well to the composite radar reflectivity,vertical motion,and hourly accumulated precipitation.The Qz-vector divergence is more effective in indicating weak precipitation.In vertical cross sections,regions with alternating positive and negative large values that match the precipitation are mainly concentrated in the middle levels for both forms of Q vectors.The temporal evolutions of vertically integrated Qz-vector divergence and Qp-vector divergence are generally similar.Both perform better than the classical quasigeostrophic Q vector and nongeostrophic Q vector in indicating the development of the precipitation system.

A Survey of Unbalanced Flow Diagnostics and Their Application

This paper presents an extensive survey of the most commonly used tools for diagnosing unbalanced flow in the atmosphere, namely the Lagrangian Rossby number, Psi vector, divergence equation, nonlinear balance equation, generalized omega-equation, and departure from fields obtained by potential vorticity (PV) inversion. The basic thoery, assumptions as well as implementation and limitations for each of the tools are all discussed. These tools are applied to high—resolution mesoscale model data to assess the role of unbalanced dynamics in the generation of a mesoscale gravity wave event over the East Coast of the United States. Comparison of these tools in this case study shows that these various methods agree to a large extent with each other though they differ in details. Key words Unbalanced flow - Geostrophic adjustment - Gravity waves - Nonlinear balance equation - Potential vorticity inversion - Omega equations - Rossby number This research was conducted under support from NSF grant ATM-9700626 of the United States. The numerical computations described herein were performed on the Cray T90 at the North Carolina Supercomputing Center and the Cray supercomputer at the NCAR Scientific Computing Division, which also provided the initialization fields for the MM5. Thanks are extended to Mark Stoelinga at University of Washington for the RIP post-processing package.