Current Research
Studies of the tropical cyclone (TC) outflow layer structure have been previously conducted with sparse spatial and temporal data. At its given spatial, vertical, and temporal resolutions, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts' ERA-Interim Reanalysis has data for each and every grid point, level, and time. Thus, it was used to generate azimuthally averaged composites of a subset of TCs occurring in the Atlantic Basin over a 36 year period (1979-2014). These composites were stratified by intensity and generated for seventeen meteorological variables including radial wind, tangential wind, relative vorticity, divergence, momentum fluxes, and heat fluxes. Structural similarities and differences between the weakest and strongest TC intensity composites were qualitatively and quantitatively evaluated.
UPDATE: Balanced vortex equations are in the process of being implemented.