The Dynamical Characteristics and Wave Structure of Typhoon Rananim (2004)

Typhoon Rananim (2004) was one of the severest typhoons landfalling the Chinese mainland from 1996 to 2004. It brought serious damage and induced prodigious economical loss. Using a new generation of mesoscale model, named the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) modeling system, with 1.667 km grid horizontal spacing on the finest nested mesh, Rananim was successfully simulated in terms of track, intensity, eye, eyewall, and spiral rainbands. We compared the structures of Rananim to those of hurricanes in previous studies and observations to assess the validity of simulation. The three-dimensional (3D) dynamic and thermal structures of eye and eyewall were studied based on the simulated results. The focus was investigation of the characteristics of the vortex Rossby waves in the inner-core region. We found that the Rossby vortex waves propagate azimuthally upwind against the azimuthal mean tangential flow around the eyewall, and their period was longer than that of an air parcel moving within the azimuthal mean tangential flow. They also propagated outward against the boundary layer inflow of the azimuthal mean vortex. Futhermore, we studied the connection between the spiral potential vorticity (PV) bands and spiral rainbands, and found that the vortex Rossby waves played an important role in the formation process of spiral rainbands.