Cyclone Interactions and Evolutions during the “Perfect Storms” of Late October and Early November 1991

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines the cyclogenesis of the “Perfect Storms” of late October and early November 1991 over the North Atlantic and focuses on the influence of Hurricane Grace (HG) toward their development. The two storms considered are the “Perfect Storm” (PS) that underwent a warm seclusion process and an extratropical cyclone (EC1) with two development phases. HG, which initially formed via tropical transition (TT), influenced the first phase of EC1 via reduced atmospheric static stability and enhanced low-level baroclinicity. As a result, deep moist convection and latent heat release produced maxima in midtropospheric diabatic heating and lower-tropospheric potential vorticity (PV) that aided the development of EC1. Backward air parcel trajectories and large diabatic contributions to eddy available potential energy (APE) generation suggests that EC1 developed as a diabatic Rossby vortex (DRV)-like feature. The second and explosively deepening phase of EC1 occurred as the cyclone coupled with an upper-tropospheric PV disturbance (PVD) over the eastern North Atlantic. Backward air parcel trajectories demonstrate the explosive deepening of EC1 involved airstreams originating from east of HG and from over the Labrador Sea. Parcel trajectories and a large baroclinic contribution to eddy APE generation further suggests that the two-phase development of EC1 may have involved a DRV-like feature. The subsequent recurvature and extratropical transition (ET) of HG occurred in the warm sector of the PS downstream of a second upper-tropospheric PVD over the western North Atlantic. Reduced atmospheric static stability, enhanced warm air advection, and strong latent heat release during the recurvature and ET of HG contributed to the development of a strong, zonally oriented warm front and the warm seclusion of the PS. Parcel trajectory analysis demonstrates that the PS warm seclusion involved the isolation of air parcels by a bent-back warm front that were warmed via sensible heating from the underlying Gulf Stream.