Thursday, October 11, 2007
FUJIWHARA EFFECT
Check out the progression of the two storms stacked over each other on the maps below, (storm just North North West of the Great Lakes and the storm over the Ohio Valley). Each is spinning counter clockwise and this is keeping the flow of cool “Canadian air” into our area. NICE! Of interesting note though is the interaction between the two storms. They display characteristics of what’s known in meteorology as a “Fujiwhara effect”,a type of interaction between two Lows, displaying an apparent "orbiting" of each other. I've actually heard someone say,"those two Lows are doing the Fujiwhara dance"! There is a beauty to the movement.
When the cyclones approach each other, their centers will begin orbiting cyclonically (counter-clockwise) about a point between the two systems. The two vortices will be attracted to each other, and eventually spiral into the center point and merge. When the two vortices are of unequal size, the larger vortex will tend to dominate the interaction, and the smaller vortex will orbit around it.
Start with the first map and scroll through the progression, watching the areas of red, (greatest spin). The one over the Ohio Valley appears to spin around the one to the north until they finally merge.
Posted by Ted Zarras at 6:15 PM
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