Interactions between Typhoon Megi (2010) and a Low-Frequency Monsoon Gyre

Abstract

The ARW Model is used to investigate the sharp northward turn of Super Typhoon Megi (2010) after it moved westward and crossed the Philippines. The NCEP analyzed fields during this period are separated into a slowly varying background-flow component, a 10–60-day low-frequency component representing the monsoon gyre, and a 10-day high-pass-filtered component representing Megi and other synoptic-scale motion. It appears that the low-frequency (10–60 day) monsoon gyre interacted with Megi and affected its track. To investigate the effect of the low-frequency mode on Megi, numerical experiments were designed. In the control experiment, the total fields of the analysis are retained in the initial and boundary conditions, and the model is able to simulate Megi’s sharp northward turn. In the second experiment, the 10–60-day monsoon gyre mode is removed from the initial and lateral boundary fields, and Megi moves westward and slightly northwestward without turning north. Tracks of the relative positions between the Megi and the monsoon gyre centers suggest that a Fujiwhara effect may exist between the monsoon gyre and Megi. The northward turning of both Megi and the monsoon gyre occurred when the two centers were close to each other and the beta drift was enhanced. A vorticity budget analysis was conducted. It is noted that the Megi moves toward the maximum wavenumber-1 vorticity tendency. The sharp change of the maximum vorticity tendency direction before and after the track turning point is primarily attributed to the change of the horizontal vorticity advection. A further diagnosis shows that the steering of the vertically integrated low-frequency flow is crucial for the change of the horizontal advection tendency.