Coupling of radial plasma gradients to the centrifugal and Coriolis forces are shown to give rise to localized, nonlinear vortex structures in rotating plasmas. The vortex density and potential structures are derived along with the nonlinear dispersion relation that relates the scale size of the vortex to its speed of propagation. The hypothesis is advanced that the vortex structures may be associated with certain localized emission features observed in the EUV and the narrow band kilometric radio emission observed in the Io plasma torus. The parameters for a vortex lagging cororation by 3% are derived for comparison with the features of a region of localized emission as given by this idealized model. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1988