Dynamics and fine structure of a microburst

Abstract

Thermodynamic fields of virtual potential temperature and buoyancy retrieved from the radar measurements indicated that the downdraft was associated with a minimum in virtual potential temperature, rather than coinciding with a maximum in precipitation loading. The physical separation of the downdraft from the reflectivity maximum was especially pronounced during the later stages of the microburst and was partly due to the tilted reflectivity core descending more rapidly than the downdraft. The downdraft cores also descended at a rate slower than the magnitude of the maximum downdraft so that air was continually converging and entraining into the downdraft above the level of its peak value and was detraining and diverging below it. -from Authors