Concentric eye walls, secondary wind maxima, and the evolution of the hurricane vortex.

Abstract

Research aircraft observations in recent hurricanes support the model of Shapiro and Willoughby (1982) for the tropical cyclone's response to circularly symmetric, convective heat sources (convective rings). In both nature and the numerical model the tangential wind commonly increases rapidly just inside the radius of maximum wind and decreases inside the eye near the central axis of the vortex. Thus both secondary outer wind maxima and eyewall wind maxima often contract as they intensify.-from Authors