Inertial Oscillation of A Vertical Rotating Draft With Application to A Supercell Storm

An analytic model (vertical rotating draft) which includes the gross features of a supercell storm on an f-plane, undergoes an inertial oscillation that appears to have been overlooked in previous analytic and numerical models. The oscillation is nonlinear and consists of a long quiescent phase and a short intense phase. During the intense phase, the rotating draft has the following features of a supercell: the diameter of the core contracts as it spins up and expands as it spins down; if vertical wind shear is included, the track of the rotating draft turns to the right (an anticyclonic rotating draft turns to the left); this turning point is followed by a predominantly upward flow; and the horizontal pressure gradient is very small (a property of most tornadoless supercells). The rapid spin-up during the intense phase and the high Rossby numbers obtainable establish the ability of the Coriolis force to spin up single cyclonic or anticyclonic supercells by means of this inertial oscillation. This surprising result has implications for numerical supercell simulations, which generally do not rely on the Coriolis force as a source of rotation. The physics and mathematics of the inertial oscillation are given, and the solution is applied to a documented supercell.