The primary modes themselves don't actually lead directly to breakdown, but instead lead to the formation of secondary instability mechanisms. As the primary modes grow and distort the mean flow, they begin to exhibit nonlinearities and linear theory no longer applies. Complicating the matter is the growing distortion of the mean flow, which can lead to inflection points in the velocity profile a situation shown by Lord Rayleigh to indicate absolute instability in a boundary layer. These secondary instabilities lead rapidly to breakdown. These secondary instabilities are often much higher in frequency than their linear precursors.