A wide rainband in a developing tropical cyclone

Abstract

The reflectivity structure, determined from land-based and aircraft radars, reveals that the band consisted of an unusually wide (80km) region of convective clouds that did not maintain a linear organization. High-θe air entered from both sides in the subcloud and lower cloud layer. Thermodynamically, the rainband was benign in the sense that it did not produce cold downdrafts or large regions of low-θe air that would limit the energy of the low-level inflow to the developing eyewall region. The chaotic reflectivity, minor thermodynamic modification of the low-level inflow, and the tendency of the flow to be along the band are characteristics that contrast sharply with those of convectively active bands observed on the leading edge of mature tropical cyclones. -from Authors