An Arctic hurricane over the Bering Sea

Abstract

A mesoscale "arctic hurricane' developed over the western Bering Sea on 7 March 1977 and traveled eastward parallel to the ice edge along a zone of large sea surface temperature gradient. Satellite imagery reveals spiral cloud bands of unusual symmetry and mesoscale dimension associated with the mature stage of the low. The track of the low pressure center passed over the rawinsonde station at St. Paul Island where time series of surface data show a pronounced maximum in equavalent potential temperature at the core of the low. The storm made landfall with surface winds >30 m s-1 at Cape Newenham, Alaska, on 9 March and rapidly dissipated thereafter. In order to investigate the ability of sea surface heat fluxes to develop and maintain the arctic hurricane, an analytical model based on the Carnot cycle, and an axisymmetric numerical model with the Kuo cumulus parameterization scheme are applied. -from Authors