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This digital collection includes publications by faculty, researchers, and/or students in the Department of Atmospheric Science.
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Browsing Publications by Subject "Aeronautics in meteorology"
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Item Open Access The CSU data set of the FIRE marine stratocumulus IFO(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1988-08) Hein, Paul F., author; Cox, Stephen K., author; Duda, David P., author; Guinn, Thomas A., author; Johnson-Pasqua, Christopher M., author; Schubert, Wayne H., author; McKee, Thomas B., author; Smith, William L., Jr., author; Kleist, John D., authorItem Open Access Vortex structure and dynamics of Florida Keys waterspouts: 1974 field experiment, final report(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1974) Sinclair, P. C., author; Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, publisherFrom direct penetrations of the waterspout funnel by specially instrumented aircraft, a quantitative description of the dynamic-thermodynamic structure of the waterspout has been developed. The Navier-Stokes equations of motion for the waterspout vortex are simplified by an extensive order of magnitude analysis of each term in the equations. The reduced set of equations provides a realistic mathematical model of the waterspout vortex. Further simplification shows that the cyclostrophic-Rankine combined vortex model accounts for, on the average, approximately 63% of the measured pressure drop from the environment to the waterspout core. The penetration measurements show that the waterspout funnel consists of a strong rotary and vertical field (radial component is smaller) of motion which results in a combined flow pattern similar to that of a helical vortex. In general, the measurements indicate that this one-cell vortex structure is the dominate configuration. However, several penetrations suggest reduced positive vertical velocities near the funnel core, and in one case, a downdraft core with vertical velocity of -0.8 msec-1. These measurements indicate that waterspout vortex may in some stages of development have a structure more closely described by the two-cell vortex such as discovered by Sinclair (1966, 1973) for the dust devil vortex. The temperature and pressure structure show that the waterspout, like the dust devil, is a warm core (ΔT = 0.1 to 0.5°C), low pressure (ΔP = -0.6 to -8.4 mb) vortex. All aircraft penetrations of the visible funnels were made within 150 m of cloud base at speeds of 55-65 msec-1.