By George William Kelly

Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Katrina, and all other hurricanes exhibit the anatomy of a bivortex. In earlier posts to this blog I have described a “bivortex” as a sphere of particles rotating around a central bipolar axial “tube.”  The particles flow along strong lines of force.  They spiral inward, forming the wall of the axial tube, at each of its poles.  The spiraling is clockwise at one pole and counter-clockwise at the other pole.  The particles increase in speed and concentration, as part of the axial tube wall, until they meet each other at the center point.  The collision at the center twists and propels them outward along the sphere’s equatorial plane.  They successively veer upward or downward away from the equatorial plane, following arched pathways back to the north or south wall of the axis, or to one of its two poles.  Particles with the greatest momentum go farthest out along the equatorial plane before veering from the plane and continuing their return-trip--along the arched pathways--toward the poles.  The sum of these particle movements within the hurricane result in a dynamic bivortex sphere, the anatomy of Hurricane Irene.

A hurricane bivortex will find a bountiful supply of particles (air, water, dust, or sand) at its lower boundary.  It will find a scarcer supply of particles at its upper boundary, especially upon reaching  thin stratospheric levels.  Nevertheless, the bivortex anatomy that I have described will continue to draw in particles from both polar vortexes.  As the hurricane grows taller the inflow from the upper vortex will decrease relative to the lower vortex, and the equator of the hurricane, with its equatorial outflow, will migrate higher.  In this manner  the hurricane bivortex will adjust its spheroidal, bipolar anatomy in response to the supply of particles available at its opposite poles.  It will become a sphere flattened at the bottom by the earth’s surface and flattened at the top by the stratospheric scarcity of particles. Its equator will be higher than midway up the sphere.

Tornadoes often occur at the outer edges of hurricanes like Irene.  These tornadoes are parts of smaller bivortexes.   The rotating periphery of the hurricane initiates the smaller bivortexes with particles that are in the path of the hurricane. These hurricane-created tornadoes may be compared to a small cogwheel (the tornado) intermeshing with a big cogwheel (the hurricane).  These “cogwheels” rotate in opposite directions.  The smaller cogwheel (tornado) rotates many times faster than the larger cogwheel (hurricane), growing faster and adding to the size of the hurricane.  As they grow, these tornado bivortexes merge with the hurricane, forming bands of stormy weather in the hurricane's periphery.    

                                                                          

Hurricanes reach high into the atmosphere, but we think of them as two-dimensional when we watch their satellite images on TV.  They look like large cottony pancakes with a hole in the middle, floating on a blue sea.  With radar images on TV screens, we see orange, green, and red colors indicating the rain, lightning, and tornadoes that accompany hurricanes.  When hurricanes actually pass over us, they reveal their devastating power.  They prove themselves far more than two-dimensional. Knowing their three-dimensional anatomy may not protect us, but it could provide us with greater understanding of how they work. 

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