No.
Thankfully.
Okay, not totally “No” but it doesn’t really work like a lot of us would commonly think.
Tropical Cyclones, or tropical systems ss I usually call them, don’t often merge to become one giant storm. For many reasons. Instead they end up orbiting each other, where one is torn apart and absorbed by the other. Not to make one stronger than before, but rather due to the physics of spinning things.
The above video is from 2017. Then in 2020, just last year, we had a situation where two tropical systems were actually close enough to study what may actually happen. When Tropical Storm Marco and Hurricane Laura both entered the Gulf, both started tugging at one-another.
Leading into that event, I wrote:
“Two storms don’t merge to form Super Hurricanes, that isn’t how physics works. Instead the Fujiwara Effect was going to come into play with Marco and Laura.”
A Gallery of Atmospheric Dynamics Animations
15 of 20: Co-rotating Vortices (Fujiwhara Effect) for more info: https://t.co/GyuxwyXUtw pic.twitter.com/9ME9QPyTtR — Mathew Barlow (@MathewABarlow) May 14, 2020
the Fujiwara Effect, according to the NWS is…
When two hurricanes spinning in the same direction pass close enough to each other, they begin an intense dance around their common center. If one hurricane is a lot stronger than the other, the smaller one will orbit it and eventually come crashing into its vortex to be absorbed. Two storms closer in strength can gravitate towards each other until they reach a common point and merge, or merely spin each other around for a while before shooting off on their own paths. In rare occasions, the effect is additive when the hurricanes come together, resulting in one larger storm instead of two smaller ones.
courtesy: WEATHER.GOV
Full disclosure: I’ve never seen two storms merge to form a single, stronger, storm as stated by the NWS. Heck, I don’t recall seeing two storms merge at all. BUT! I have seen that happen with two spinning Black Holes, and I’m sure the physics is similar between the two. The main difference is there are very few interfering influences with black holes. With hurricane there are multiple, at times compounding, interfering factors.
So, it doesn’t happen often.
And yeah, I know there are, like, infinity YouTube videos of Hilary and Irwin in the Pacific Ocean “merging” but most of those examples shown were in the modeling.
In reality, this is what happened:
Going back to last year, it turned out that my ascertian that Marco would track farther north and die off while Laura would also track farther north and gain strength held. In part due to Fujiwara, in part due to other atmospheric factors.
But they didn’t merge. Because that isn’t really how it works.
