08-22-2018, 08:12 AM
our less than 14K high mountains are more like speed bumps than storm stoppers...
I think that is a bit naive.. it doesn't matter if it is upper winds that shear a storm or a mountain below. If there is an obstacle.. some reason a system can not move air around itself efficiently.. then the system is challenged and will be effected. Our Maunas are not insignificant speed bumps. They are walls and a storm that swirls round and round needs room to do so. If that room is truncated, on top, on bottom, wherever, then the air can't move through there and the symmetry is broken. It's not a speed bump, its a wall. A solid as they come wall. As such a storm swirling over on the Kona side isn't going to be free to swirl as much up the Hamakua side.
I mean, that is what my addled brain (so suggested geochem in his latest rant!) thinks.. but then I am sure Carey knows better, right?
I think that is a bit naive.. it doesn't matter if it is upper winds that shear a storm or a mountain below. If there is an obstacle.. some reason a system can not move air around itself efficiently.. then the system is challenged and will be effected. Our Maunas are not insignificant speed bumps. They are walls and a storm that swirls round and round needs room to do so. If that room is truncated, on top, on bottom, wherever, then the air can't move through there and the symmetry is broken. It's not a speed bump, its a wall. A solid as they come wall. As such a storm swirling over on the Kona side isn't going to be free to swirl as much up the Hamakua side.
I mean, that is what my addled brain (so suggested geochem in his latest rant!) thinks.. but then I am sure Carey knows better, right?