Supercell tornadogenesis: How important is the low-level updraft relative to cold pool character?

What is it about?

Idealized model experiments are performed, separately investigating the effect of changing the updraft strength, cold pool strength or updraft width. With this approach the relative importance of these three factors on tornadogenesis can be isolated.

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Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash

Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Recent studies have shown that the low-level updraft takes an important role in supercell tornadogenesis. The question remained if the cold pool can have an equally important impact in some cases, e.g. through baroclinic generation of horizontal vorticity.