The dynamics of three vortices moving in an ideal fluid in a plane can be expressed in Hamiltonian form. However, when viscosity can not be ignored, the system of point vortices has not this delicious structure. This investigation focuses on the viscosity effect on the motion of three vortices. Since the viscous diffusion of vortices is simulated by Brownian motion, the equations of intervortical distances are obtained by Ito formula. These equations show that there exist two viscosity effects on intervortical distances: stable expansion and random impulse. Furthermore, via employing the asymptotic solution to these equations, these two viscous effects have been shown to destroy the self-similar process of collapse and make it into a new configuration, which is similar to the near collapse in the ideal case.
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