The use of vertical wind shear versus helicity in interpreting supercell dynamics

A series of idealized simulations of supercell storms are presented for environments representing straight through circular hodographs to clarify the character of the storm dynamics over the large spectrum of hodograph shapes commonly observed. The primary emphasis is on comparing and contrasting recent theories of supercell dynamics, based on updraft-shear interactions, storm-relative environmental helicity (SREH), and Beltrami-flow solutions, to help clarify the degree to which each theory can represent the essential storm dynamics.