The purpose of this paper is to explore how a tropical cyclone forms from a pre-existing large-scale depression which has been observed and associated with cross-equatorial surges in the western North Pacific. Tropical cyclone Bilis（2000） was selected as the case to study.The research data used are from the results of the non-hydrostatic mesoscale model（MM5）,which has successfully simulated the transformation of a pre-existing weak large-scale tropical depression into a strong tropical storm.The scale separation technique is used to separate the synoptic-scale and sub-synoptic-scale fields from the model output fields. The scale-separated fields show that the pre-existing synoptic-scale tropical depression and the subsynoptic scale tropical cyclone formed later were different scale systems from beginning to end.It is also shown that the pre-existing synoptic-scale tropical depression did not contract to become the tropical cyclone. A series of weak,sub-synoptic-scale low and high pressure systems appeared and disappeared in the synopticscale depression,with one of the low systems near the center of the synoptic-scale depression having deepened to become the tropical cyclone. The roles of the synoptic-scale flow and the sub-synoptic scale disturbances in the formation of the tropical cyclone are investigated by diagnoses of the scale-separated vertical vorticity equation.The results show that the early development of the sub-synoptic scale vortex was fundamentally dependent on the strengthening synoptic-scale environmental depression.The depression was strengthened by cross-equatorial surges,which increased the convergence of the synoptic-scale depression at low levels and triggered the formation of the tropical cyclone.
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