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DESIGN GUIDE

This PowerPoint 2007 template produces a 36”x56”

presentation poster. You can use it to create your research

poster and save valuable time placing titles, subtitles, text,

and graphics.

We provide a series of online tutorials that will guide you

through the poster design process and answer your poster

production questions. To view our template tutorials, go online

to PosterPresentations.com and click on HELP DESK.

When you are ready to print your poster, go online to

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QUICK START

Zoom in and out As you work on your poster zoom in and out to the level that

is more comfortable to you.

Go to VIEW > ZOOM.

Title, Authors, and Affiliations Start designing your poster by adding the title, the names of the authors,

and the affiliated institutions. You can type or paste text into the

provided boxes. The template will automatically adjust the size of your

text to fit the title box. You can manually override this feature and

change the size of your text.

TIP: The font size of your title should be bigger than your name(s) and

institution name(s).

Adding Logos / Seals Most often, logos are added on each side of the title. You can insert a

logo by dragging and dropping it from your desktop, copy and paste or by

going to INSERT > PICTURES. Logos taken from web sites are likely to be

low quality when printed. Zoom it at 100% to see what the logo will look

like on the final poster and make any necessary adjustments.

TIP: See if your school’s logo is available on our free poster templates

page.

Photographs / Graphics You can add images by dragging and dropping from your desktop, copy

and paste, or by going to INSERT > PICTURES. Resize images

proportionally by holding down the SHIFT key and dragging one of the

corner handles. For a professional-looking poster, do not distort your

images by enlarging them disproportionally.

Image Quality Check Zoom in and look at your images at 100% magnification. If they look good

they will print well.

ORIGINAL DISTORTED Corner handles

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QUICK START (cont.)

How to change the template color theme You can easily change the color theme of your poster by going to the

DESIGN menu, click on COLORS, and choose the color theme of your

choice. You can also create your own color theme.

You can also manually change the color of your background by going to

VIEW > SLIDE MASTER. After you finish working on the master be sure to

go to VIEW > NORMAL to continue working on your poster.

How to add Text The template comes with a number of pre-formatted placeholders for

headers and text blocks. You can add more blocks by copying and pasting

the existing ones or by adding a text box from the HOME menu.

Text size Adjust the size of your text based on how much content you have to

present. The default template text offers a good starting point. Follow

the conference requirements.

How to add Tables To add a table from scratch go to the INSERT menu and

click on TABLE. A drop-down box will help you select rows

and columns.

You can also copy and a paste a table from Word or another PowerPoint

document. A pasted table may need to be re-formatted by RIGHT-CLICK >

FORMAT SHAPE, TEXT BOX, Margins.

Graphs / Charts You can simply copy and paste charts and graphs from Excel or Word.

Some reformatting may be required depending on how the original

document has been created.

How to change the column configuration RIGHT-CLICK on the poster background and select LAYOUT to see the

column options available for this template. The poster columns can also

be customized on the Master. VIEW > MASTER.

How to remove the info bars If you are working in PowerPoint for Windows and have finished your

poster, save as PDF and the bars will not be included. You can also delete

them by going to VIEW > MASTER. On the Mac adjust the Page-Setup to

match the Page-Setup in PowerPoint before you create a PDF. You can

also delete them from the Slide Master.

Save your work Save your template as a PowerPoint document. For printing, save as

PowerPoint or “Print-quality” PDF.

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b) c) a)

Introduction

During the late morning of 16 December 2015 an EF2

tornado occurred 4 km southeast of Australia's busiest

airport – Sydney Airport. This tornado was notable in many

ways:

• A relative abundance of observations was available,

including the Kurnell C-band Doppler radar located less

than 2 km from the tornado path

• The parent supercell tracked over water just off the east

Australian coast during its life cycle, apart from when it

briefly crossed the Kurnell peninsula when the tornado

occurred.

• The tornado passed very close to an Automatic

Weather Station (AWS) located on a jetty in Botany Bay

at Kurnell which recorded a wind gust of 59.2 m s-1 (213

km/h, 115kts, 132mph) at 10:33 am local time.

• The wind gust measured by the Kurnell AWS is an

Australian record outside of a tropical cyclone.

• There were several RFD pulses and strong gate to gate

velocity couplets associated with the parent storm prior

to the tornado

• Damage from the tornado was extensive with the

Insurance Council of Australia reporting it to be the

most costly disaster of the Australian 2015/2016

summer, costing insurance companies AU$206m.

Kinematic assessment of Mesocyclone and Tornado Cyclone Thermodynamic Assessment of Pre-storm Environment

Summary and Points for Discussion

Doppler Radar and Storm Environment Observations of a

Maritime Tornadic Supercell in Sydney, Australia

Harald RICHTER1, Joshua SODERHOLM2, James TAYLOR3, Alain PROTAT1

#155

1 Research and Development Branch Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, Australia

2 Climate Research Group

University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

3Extreme Weather Desk, Bureau National Operations Centre

Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, Australia

• Dual Doppler winds were derived using Terry Hills S-band Doppler radar (~36km to the north of Kurnell)

and the Kurnell radar (1.6km to the east of tornado track)

• The tornado parent cyclone appears as a zone of strong convergence / vorticity in the southwest corner

of a ~7 km wide low-level mesocyclone – refer figure 6

• Just prior to tornado formation the storm ingested localised patches of enhanced 0.2-1 km storm-relative

helicity (SRH) – refer figure 7

• The key contributor to the overall SRH values appears to be a 'vorticity sheet' within the storm inflow

layer where the north-easterly inflow backs to north-westerly – refer figure 8

• AMDAR hodographs confirm very strong spatiotemporal variability in the SRH – refer figure 9

Figure 7: 0.2-1 km AGL storm-relative helicity based on the

dual-Doppler derived wind profile (shaded). Wind vectors

are shown at 500 m AGL and also derived from dual

Doppler. Storm motion (subjectively derived from Kurnell

radar data around tornado time) used is 7.5 m s-1 towards

19 degrees. Bold contours show 35, 45, 55 and 65 dBZ

outlines at 500 m AGL.

Figure 1. Kurnell Doppler Radar imagery at

2319 UTC (10:19 am LT) at 0.24o elevation; a)

PPI reflectivity; b) PPI Doppler radial velocity.

a)

b)

Figure 2. a) Approximate supercell storm track from 2130 UTC 15 December to 0030 UTC 16 December ; b)

Tornado damage at Kurnell. c) Enhanced still frame from video showing tornado (Courtesy of Peter Grassmayr)

Figure 3. One minute data

from Kurnell AWS

impacted by tornado.

Black line indicates wind

speed in knots (using left

axis) and yellow line

indicates wind direction

(using right axis).

Figure 10. a) 18 UTC 15 December 2015 ACCESS-R (red) model sounding and 19 UTC 15 December

observed Sydney Airport sounding (black); b) Soundings based on a 6-hour forecast from the 18 UTC

ACCESS-R run valid at 23 UTC (red), the 2256 UTC AMDAR (blue), the 2258 UTC AMDAR (green) and the

2311 UTC AMDAR (black); c) Hourly soundings at 18 UTC (black), 19 UTC (red), 20 UTC (blue) and 21 UTC

(green) based on the 18 UTC run of ACCESS-R indicating the rapid removal of inversion prior to the Kurnell

tornado.

Figure 5 (right). Sydney airport AMDAR flight paths

with height and time of data relay and 2306 UTC radar

reflectivity overlay; Red 2256 UTC ascending; Orange

2258 UTC ascending; Yellow 2311 UTC descending.

Figure 6. Dual Doppler winds at 2325 UTC at 1.5 km AGL(left) and 2331 UTC at 2.5 km AGL (right). Color fill is

the corresponding reflectivity from the Kurnell radar. Winds shown as vectors with increased length

corresponding to increased speed.

23:31 UTC 23:25 UTC

23:19 UTC 23:13 UTC

Figure 8: Vertical profile of the streamwise vorticity taken

at the locations of the 0.2-1 km SRH maxima (red dots

southeast of Kurnell in Figure 7).

23:13 UTC 23:19 UTC

Figure 11. 23 UTC ACCESS-R sounding (18 UTC run) with the hodograph winds derived from the 2313

UTC dual Doppler observations at the location of the SRH maximum (red dot) in Fig. 7a.

a) b)

c)

Figure 4.

Red dot

indicates

location of

Kurnell

Figure 9: Observed hodographs based on the

22:56 UTC (green), 22:58 UTC (blue) and 23:11

UTC (red) AMDARS shown in Fig. 5.

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

• An EF-2 tornado crossed a small Peninsula on 16 December 2015 just 4 km southeast of Sydney Airport

• A wind gust of 59 m s-1 was measured as the tornado moved offshore along the northern coastline of the

Peninsula

• Small patches of large low-level storm-relative helicity are evident along the eastern coastline of Australia

just ahead of the storm and prior to the Kurnell tornado

• In the vertical, these maxima in SRH are dominated by a sheet of large streamwise vorticity along the

interface of north-easterly flow (below) and north-westerly flow (above)

• The processes for the cap removal (figure 10) are unclear, but candidates are high-based pre-existing

light showers raining into a very dry capping layer and an inland push of easterly flow at 900 hPa,

potentially associated with a mesoscale low.

• A firmly capped marine layer at 19 UTC experienced complete removal of the cap during the early

morning hours (between 6 am and 10 am LT) – refer figure 10