I've a basic misunderstanding about the formation of tropic cyclones. From the absolute point of view, cyclones form in order to conserve total angular momentum - air masses at different latitudes have different specific angular momentum due to earth rotation (their distance from the earth's axis of rotation is different), so when a low pressure system forms, radial air flow towards the center has to rotate (in the rotating-earth frame of reference) cyclonicaly in order to conserve angular momentum. Putting it in a different point of view, the Coriolis force deflects the radial winds to create the "tropic cyclone" system.
What i don't understand is this: one can say that the circulation system has angular momentum in the direction of the local vertical at the eye of the storm (it's local zenith direction). But such angular momentum vector has component in a direction perpendicular to the earth rotation axis! so it cannot conserve angular momentum. So what am i missing here? is it something in my basic understanding of the Coriolic force? or maybe my knowledge of the physical structure of the storm is lacking something.
I'd also like to know if there are models that predict maximal tropic storm size as function of latitude. I read the thermodynamic model in wikipedia excellent article on tropic storm, but this model gives upper bound about wind speed and specific rate of energy production (rate of energy production per unit area of sea surface), and doesn't give information about the size of the storm. I think that for estimating sizes one needs to use mechanical conceptions.
