Effective Inflow

Effective inflow with base at the surface and top at 2690m AGL. Effective SRH is 592 m2/s2.

The effective inflow base (m AGL) and top (m AGL) are depicted with horizontal cyan colored lines connected by a vertical line. The effective SRH is annotated above the top of the effective inflow layer in m2/s2.

The effective inflow is the layer from which CAPE originates and CIN is not too large. This is particularly useful in situations of elevated instability (e.g. north of a surface warm front where inflow into a storm may not be surface based). The criteria for the effective inflow are:

CAPE > 100 J/kg

CIN > -250 J/kg

Starting at the ground and working upward, the CAPE and CIN at each level are computed and checked against the criteria to come up with the effective inflow layer. This layer is used to compute an effective SRH, and it is used in the following parameters displayed in table 1:

EFF PARCEL (CAPE, CIN, LCL, LI, LFC, EL)

Eff Inflow Layer and Lower Half Storm Depth (SRH, Shear, Mn Wind, SRW)

Supercell Composite ("Supercell")

Significant Tornado ("STP(CIN)")

Significant Tornado using CAPE below 500mb ("STP(test)")

The effective inflow layer is depicted in the hodograph with cyan lines drawn from the storm motion to the hodograph trace: