Hurricanes, what if this scenario happens?

Question

In 2004 ( what a fun year that was here in Florida) one of the hurricaines was about the size of Texas. It brewed in the Atlantic and made land fall on the eastern side of the state. What if, in the gulf, there was another storm brewing, not quite as strong but a pretty good one---if this storm was moving toward the western part of the state, would the stronger storm push it away or suck it towards it? What would the consequences in terms of added tornadic activity?

Answer 1

Large hurricanes, such as the one you're describing, often create their own environment. That is, it's so large it starts affecting the atmosphere away from the hurricane.

All hurricanes, especially large ones, have a large area of subsidence (sinking motion) outside of the main cloud shield. This is to balance out the tremendous rising motion within the hurricane. The sinking motion basically dries out the atmosphere around the hurricane and prevents clouds and rain from forming there.

In addition, hurricanes are generally steered by upper air currents -- and it's very unlikely that those upper air currents could steer two hurricanes towards each other in the way you're describing.

So to answer your question, it's unlikely that two storms of that size would approach each other in that way. If it did happen, the smaller tropical system will probably just fizzle out due to the subsidence from the large hurricane.

Sometimes in rare cases, two tropical systems can rotate around each other like gears/cogs. That is what is known as a Fujiwara effect. I don't believe it has any real impact on the strength of the storms, it just radically alters the direction of the two storms.

Answer 2

It would be unlikely that this would happen because hurricanes need areas free of wind shear to develop and the large hurricane would have a far reaching effect on the surrounding atmosphere. (Hundreds of miles)

In a hurricane, all the energy gets pulled toward the low pressure in the center. So, if your scenario were to happen, I would think that the smaller hurricane would be drawn into the larger.

Tornadoes form from different wind directions at different altitudes. Since the two storms would be joining, the larger storm would be controlling the wind directions.

If this (hypothetically) did happen, I think, the storms would suffer a great energy loss from joining together.