It is shown how a simple property of the spherical vortex model can be used to investigate the dynamics of a buoyant, expanding thermal. No details of the vortex motion are required, only the fact that the flow round the buoyant region is potential. The main result is a demonstration that there is a relation between the two constants C and α arising in the dimensional analysis (where in the usual notation w = C (Δr) ½) and r = αz), which have up till now been measured separately and treated as independent. The analysis has been extended to spheroidal thermals by calculating the virtual mass for the appropriate outline, and it has also been generalized to include thermals in which the total buoyancy is increasing with time.

Using these risults, and an earlier experimental verification that the mean angles of spread are nearly the same under various conditions of stability, it is suggested that the whole of the mean behaviour of a thermal can be calculated in two nearly independent steps. first, the density difference or Δ as a function of height may be calculated using purely kinematic equations of conservation. Secondly, the velocity is obtained from the local values of Δ and radius r, using a mean value of C, since this has now also been shown to vary little over a wide range of conditions.