The Multi-Scale Dynamics Organizing a Favorable Environment for Convective Density Currents That Redirected the Yarnell Hill Fire
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Methodology
2.1. Observations
2.2. Numerical Simulations
3. Results
3.1. Precursor Synoptic-to-Meso-α-Scale Dynamics
3.1.1. Continental RWB Resulting in trough Thinning
3.1.2. Dual Short Waves in Response to the Primary and Secondary RWB Leading to Subsequent IW Frontogenesis
3.1.3. Moisture Transport in Response to Downscale Trough Organization and Frontogenesis
3.2. Regional Circulations Organizing Convection at the Meso-β Scale
3.2.1. Dual Jetlet (J1 and J2) Evolution and Divergent Circulation Organizing Convection
3.2.2. Signal of Enhanced/Spatially Variable Convective Instability, Downdraft Potential, and Vertical Wind Shear
3.3. Observed Radar and Simulated Meso-β/γ Scale Low-Level Winds
3.3.1. Observed Radar Evolution
3.3.2. Simulated Meso-β/γ-Scale Low-Level Winds
4. Summary and Conclusions
- The circulation over North America transitioned to a transport of cool arctic air equatorward, creating a meridional temperature gradient across the U.S.–Canadian border.
- A polar jet streak encounters this meridional temperature gradient across the U.S.–Canadian border causing the primary baroclinic, cyclonic RWB to occur, resulting in equatorward PV transport.
- Broad trough thinning accompanying the RWB is followed by a weaker secondary anticyclonic RWB, which reinforces the equatorward reversal of the PV maxima aloft.
- Two short-wave troughs accompanying the RWBs advected cool low-level air from the Central U.S. towards and over the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, where low-level IW frontogenesis occurs.
- Low-level moist air was advected by the nocturnal low-level jet into the river valleys of New Mexico and Arizona.
- A secondary jet streak developed near the low-level IW front and organized a tertiary finer scale jetlet in its unbalanced right entrance region.
- This jetlet subsequently increased the divergence above the MPS over the MR and adjacent mountains, enhancing the ascent from the low-level thermally direct circulation.
- This intensifying jetlet resulted in ageostrophy, divergence, vertical wind shear, and ascent between the MR and Yarnell.
- Convection just north and northeast of Yarnell organized into dual convective lines and a southwestward propagating density current.
- The density current and its northeasterly winds approached Yarnell through Peeples Valley. It subsequently organized new convection in a less sheared and more unstable environment along the slopes of the Eastern Weaver Mountains, organizing a propagating microburst with outflowing easterly winds converging with the dying density current’s northeasterly winds near the firefighters.
Author Contributions
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Abbreviations
References
- National Weather Service. Yarnell Fire. 28 June–10 July 2013. Available online: https://tinyurl.com/ybsremce (accessed on 3 October 2021).
- Lafire. The Fire of ’33. Available online: http://www.lafire.com/famous_fires/1933-1003_GriffithParkFire/1933-1003_GriffithParkFire.htm (accessed on 3 October 2021).
- Yarnell Hill Briefing Video. Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSxSqjRmxIE&t=1203s (accessed on 3 October 2021).
- Aiguo, D.; National Center for Atmospheric Research Staff (Eds.) The Climate Data Guide: Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). Available online: https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/palmer-drought-severity-index-pdsi (accessed on 3 October 2021).
- Taylor, A.A.; Klimowski, B.A.; Staudenmaier, M.J., Jr. Meteorological Conditions and Decision Support Services Associated with the Yarnell Hill Fire. In Proceedings of the Third Symposium on Building a Weather-Ready Nation: Enhancing Our Nation’s Readiness, Responsiveness, and Resilience to High Impact Weather Events, American Meteorological Society 95th Annual Meeting, Phoenix, AZ, USA, 6 January 2015. [Google Scholar]
- Maddox, R.A.; McCollum, D.M.; Howard, K.W. Large-scale patterns associated with severe summertime thunderstorms over central Arizona. Weather. Forecast. 1995, 10, 763–778. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Mazon, J.J.; Castro, C.L.; Adams, D.; Chang, H.-I.; Carrillo, C.M.; Brost, J.J. Objective Climatological Analysis of Extreme Weather Events in Arizona during the North American Monsoon. J. Appl. Meteorol. Clim. 2016, 55, 2431–2450. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Yang, L.; Smith, J.; Baeck, M.L.; Morin, E. Flash Flooding in Arid/Semiarid Regions: Climatological Analyses of Flood-Producing Storms in Central Arizona during the North American Monsoon. J. Hydrometeorol. 2019, 20, 1449–1471. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Castro, C.L.; Pielke, R.A.; Adegoke, J.O. Investigation of the Summer Climate of the Contiguous United States and Mexico Using the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS). Part I: Model Climatology (1950–2002). J. Clim. 2007, 20, 3844–3865. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Castro, C.L.; Pielke, R.A.; Adegoke, J.O.; Schubert, S.D.; Pegion, P.J. Investigation of the Summer Climate of the Contiguous United States and Mexico Using the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS). Part II: Model Climate Variability. J. Clim. 2007, 20, 3866–3887. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Castro, C.L.; Chang, H.-I.; Dominguez, F.; Carrillo, C.; Schemm, J.E.; Juang, H.-M.H. Can a Regional Climate Model Improve the Ability to Forecast the North American Monsoon? J. Clim. 2012, 25, 8212–8237. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Mccollum, D.M.; Maddox, R.A.; Howard, K.W. Case Study of a Severe Mesoscale Convective System in Central Arizona. Weather Forecast. 1995, 10, 643–665. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Ising, J.; Lin, Y.-L.; Kaplan, M.L. Effects of density current, diurnal heating, and local terrain on the mesoscale environment conducive to the Yarnell Hill Fire. Meteorol. Atmos. Phys. 2021, Submitted. [Google Scholar]
- Damiani, R.; Zehnder, J.; Geerts, B.; Demko, J.; Haimov, S.; Petti, J.; Poulos, G.S.; Razdan, A.; Hu, J.; Leuthold, M.; et al. The Cumulus Photogrammetric, In-situ and Doppler Observations Experiment of 2006. Bull. Am. Meteor. Soc. 2008, 89, 57–73. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Demko, J.C.; Geerts, B.; Miao, Q.; Zehnder, J.A. Boundary Layer Energy Transport and Cumulus Development over a Heated Mountain: An Observational Study. Mon. Weather Rev. 2009, 137, 447–468. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Carbone, R.E. A Severe Frontal Rainband. Part I. Stormwide Hydrodynamic Structure. J. Atmos. Sci. 1982, 39, 258–279. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Wakimoto, R.M. The life cycle of thunderstorm gust fronts as viewed with Doppler radar and rawisonde data. Mon. Weather Rev. 1982, 110, 1060–1082. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Rotunno, R.; Klemp, J.B.; Weisman, M.L. A theory for strong, long-lived squall lines. J. Atmos. Sci. 1988, 45, 463–485. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Xu, Q.; Moncrieff, M.W. Density current circulations in shear flows. J. Atmos. Sci. 1994, 51, 434–446. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Liu, C.; Moncrieff, M.W. A Numerical Study of the Effects of Ambient Flow and Shear on Density Currents. Mon. Weather Rev. 1996, 124, 2282–2303. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Liu, C.; Moncrieff, M.W. An analytical study of density currents in sheared, stratified fluids including the effects of latent heat release. J. Atmos. Sci. 1996, 53, 3303–3312. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Xue, M.; Xu, Q.; Droegemeier, K.K. A theoretial and numerical study of density currents in nonconstant shear flows. J. Atmos. Sci. 1997, 54, 1998–2019. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Moncrieff, M.W.; Liu, C. Convection initiation by density currents: Role of convergence, shear, and dynamical organization. Mon. Weather Rev. 1999, 127, 2455–2464. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Plymouth State Weather Center. Available online: https://vortex.plymouth.edu/ (accessed on 3 October 2021).
- ECMWF ERA-Interim. Available online: https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/reanalysis-datasets/era-interim (accessed on 3 October 2021).
- ECMWF ERA5. Available online: https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/datasets/reanalysis-datasets/era5 (accessed on 3 October 2021).
- NOAA NCEI NEXRAD Data Archive, Inventory and Access. Available online: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/nexradinv (accessed on 3 October 2021).
- NWS Forecast Office Flagstaff, AZ. Available online: https://www.weather.gov/fgz/ (accessed on 3 October 2021).
- Durre, I.; Xungang, Y.; Vose, R.S.; Applequist, S.; Arnfield, J. Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive (IGRA), Version 2; National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI): Asheville, NC, USA, 2016. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Remote Automatic Weather Stations (RAWS). Available online: https://raws.nifc.gov/ (accessed on 3 October 2021).
- Sinclair, M.R. Use of a simple graphics viewer for gridded data to improve data literacy. In Proceedings of the 24th Symposium on Education American Meteorological Society, Phoenix, AZ, USA, 4–8 January 2015. [Google Scholar]
- Skamarock, W.C.; Klemp, J.B.; Dudhia, J.; Gill, D.O.; Barker, D.M.; Wang, W.; Powers, J.G. A Description of the Advanced Research WRF Version 2; NCAR Technical Note NCAR/TN–468+STR; National Center for Atmospheric Research: Boulder, CO, USA, 2005; p. 100. [Google Scholar]
- Grell, G.A.; Freitas, S.R. A scale and aerosol aware stochastic convective parameterization for weather and air quality modeling. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 2014, 14, 5233–5250. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Mielikainen, J.; Huang, B.; Huang, H.L.A. Optimizing the Purdue-Lin microphysics scheme for Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Obs. Remote Sens. 2016, 9, 425–438. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Mellor, G.L.; Yamada, T. A Hierarchy of Turbulence Closure Models for Planetary Boundary Layers. J. Atmos. Sci. 1974, 31, 1791–1806. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Janjic, Z.I. The step-mountain eta coordinate model: Further developments of the convection, viscous sublayer, and turbulence closure schemes. Mon. Weather Rev. 1994, 122, 927–945. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Janjic, Z. Nonsingular Implementation of the Mellor-Yamada Level 2.5 Scheme in the NCEP Meso model. NCEP Off. Note 2002, 437, 61. [Google Scholar]
- Chen, F.; Dudhia, J. Coupling an Advanced Land Surface–Hydrology Model with the Penn State–NCAR MM5 Modeling System. Part I: Model Implementation and Sensitivity. Mon. Weather Rev. 2001, 129, 569–585. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Ek, M.B.; Mitchell, K.E.; Lin, Y.; Rogers, E.; Grunmann, P.; Koren, V.; Gayno, G.; Tarpley, J.D. Implementation of Noah land surface model advances in the National Centers for Environmental Prediction operational mesoscale Eta model. J. Geophys. Res. Space Phys. 2003, 108, 8851. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Dudhia, J. Numerical Study of Convection Observed during the Winter Monsoon Experiment Using a Mesoscale Two-Dimensional Model. J. Atmos. Sci. 1989, 46, 3077–3107. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Mlawer, E.J.; Taubman, S.J.; Brown, P.D.; Iacono, M.J.; Clough, S.A. Radiative transfer for inhomogeneous atmospheres: RRTM, a validated correlated-k model for the longwave. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 1997, 102, 16663–16682. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- May, R.M.; Arms, S.C.; Marsh, P.; Bruning, E.; Leeman, J.R.; Goebbert, K.; Thielen, J.E.; Bruick, Z. MetPy: A Python Package for Meteorological Data. Unidata 2021. Available online: https://github.com/Unidata/MetPy (accessed on 3 October 2021). [CrossRef]
- Postel, G.A.; Hitchman, M.H. A climatology of Rossby wave breaking along the subtropical tropopause. J. Atmos. Sci. 1999, 56, 359–373. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Abatzoglou, J.T.; Magnusdottir, G. Planetary wave breaking and nonlinear reflection: Seasonal cycle and interannual variability. J. Clim. 2006, 19, 6139–6152. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Kaplan, M.L.; Tilley, J.S.; Hatchett, B.J.; Smith, C.M.; Walston, J.M.; Shourd, K.N.; Lewis, J.M. The Record Los Angeles Heat Event of September 2010: 1. Synoptic-Scale-Meso-β-Scale Analyses of Interactive Planetary Wave Breaking, Terrain- and Coastal-Induced Circulations. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 2017, 122, 710–729. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Mecikalski, J.R.; Tilley, J.S. Front Range Cold Surges: Development of a Classification Scheme. Meteor. Atmos. Phys. 1992, 48, 249–271. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Kaplan, M.L.; Koch, S.E.; Lin, Y.L.; Weglarz, R.P.; Rozumalski, R.A. Numerical simulations of a gravity wave event over CCOPE. Part I: The role of geostrophic adjustment in mesoscale ageostrophic jetlet formation. Mon. Weather Rev. 1997, 125, 1185–1211. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Hamilton, D.W.; Lin, Y.L.; Weglarz, R.P.; Kaplan, M.L. Jetlet formation with diabatic forcing with applications to the 1994 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak. Mon. Weather Rev. 1998, 126, 2061–2089. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Koch, S.E.; Hamilton, D.; Kramer, D.; Langmaid, A. Mesoscale dynamics in the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak. Mon. Weather Rev. 1998, 126, 2031–2060. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Lin, Y.-L. Mesoscale Dynamics; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 2010; p. 646. ISBN 13978-0521004848. [Google Scholar]
- Uccellini, L.W.; Koch, S.E. The synoptic setting and possible energy sources for mesoscale wave disturbances. Mon. Weather Rev. 1987, 115, 721–729. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Banta, R.M. Daytime boundary-layer evolution over mountainous terrain. Part I: Observations of the dry circulations. Mon. Weather Rev. 1984, 112, 340–356. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Tripoli, G.J.; Cotton, W.R. Numerical study of an observed orogenic mesoscale convective system. Part I: Simulated genesis and comparison with observations. Mon. Weather Rev. 1989, 117, 273–304. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Melnikov, V.M.; Zrnic, D.S.; Rabin, R.M.; Zhang, P. Radar polarimetric signatures of fire plumes in Oklahoma. Geophys. Res. Lett. 2008, 35, L14815. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. |
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Share and Cite
Kaplan, M.L.; James, C.N.; Ising, J.; Sinclair, M.R.; Lin, Y.-L.; Taylor, A.; Riley, J.; Karim, S.M.S.; Wiles, J. The Multi-Scale Dynamics Organizing a Favorable Environment for Convective Density Currents That Redirected the Yarnell Hill Fire. Climate 2021, 9, 170. https://doi.org/10.3390/cli9120170
Kaplan ML, James CN, Ising J, Sinclair MR, Lin Y-L, Taylor A, Riley J, Karim SMS, Wiles J. The Multi-Scale Dynamics Organizing a Favorable Environment for Convective Density Currents That Redirected the Yarnell Hill Fire. Climate. 2021; 9(12):170. https://doi.org/10.3390/cli9120170
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaplan, Michael L., Curtis N. James, Jan Ising, Mark R. Sinclair, Yuh-Lang Lin, Andrew Taylor, Justin Riley, Shak M. S. Karim, and Jackson Wiles. 2021. "The Multi-Scale Dynamics Organizing a Favorable Environment for Convective Density Currents That Redirected the Yarnell Hill Fire" Climate 9, no. 12: 170. https://doi.org/10.3390/cli9120170