A vortex-based perspective of eastern Pacific tropical cyclone formation

This implies that developing disturbances were selected early on by favorable synoptic-scale features. The characteristic time-mean reversal of the meridional gradient of absolute vorticity in the lower troposphere was found to nearly vanish when the aggregate contribution of strong vortices was removed from the time-mean vorticity. This finding implies that it is difficult to unambiguously attribute development to a preexisting enhancement of vorticity on the synoptic scale.

The time-mean enhancement of cyclonic vorticity primarily results from the accumulated effect of vortices. It is suggested that horizontal deformation in the background state helps distinguish developing vortices from nondevelopers, and also biases the latitude of development poleward of the climatological ITCZ axis.