To: Tropical storms mailing list

Subject: Re: The Australian monsoon, the monsoon trough, TC Winsome
 

Greetings all..

Given all this excited talk by Mark Lander last weekend as the Australian monsoon trough wound up, and the discussion of the subsequent evolution into TC Winsome which is marching merrily across the Australian continent,
....it behoves me to point out that sometimes the atmosphere can be a thing of beauty.
 

Attached are three gif files: # One: (titled 0102060000) is the TLAPS numerical analysis of 900 hPa vorticity from 6 February this year, taken from Gordon jackson's web site. Look at the lovely west-east stretching line of vorticity across the domain at about 10S. Thats the monsoon shear-line/trough...
Isn't it beautiful? Doesn't it remind you of initial line of vorticity in the Guinn and Schubert (1993) model (as referenced in my chapter of the WMO Green-bible of 1995... see Fig 3.27 of McBride/WMO 1995)?

ATTACHMENT ONE:

Now... look at Attachment # 2 01002090000.gif...The vorticity a few days later... three or so vortex filaments are trailing off... just like the second panel (day 10) in the Guinn and Schubert diagram.

Attachment Two:

Now... look at the third attachemnt: 0102110000.gif... Last Sunday morning, when Winsome and two monsoon depressions had developed... the monsoon trough has rolled up into three distinct vortices... just like the third/final part of the Guinn-Schubert diagram, and like the schematic in Fig 3.28 of McBride/WMo 1995.

Attachment Three:

Isn't it nice when the atmosphere does what we said it would?

Cheers

John McBride