Convective transport of mass and energy in severe storms over the United States—an estimate from a geostationary altitude

Abstract

Some important characteristics of intense convection associated with tornado vortices are described in a case study based on photographs of the United States on April 19 and 23, 1968, that were transmitted from NASA's geosynchronous satellite, ATS-3. The growth rates of a number of convection complexes as estimated from the satellite cloud photographs are studied. Based on a three-layer convection model, the upward fluxes of mass and energy in these severe storms are computed. The computed fluxes seem to be higher by at least one order of magnitude than in a moderate thunderstorm (Brown, 1967).It is suggested that the pronounced growth rate of a convection complex as estimated on the ATS-3 satellite photographs should be an indication of the presence of severe storm cells below the cirrus canopy.