Space launch, landing, and ground operations at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) are highly sensitive to mesoscale weather conditions throughout the year. The complex topography and land-sea interfaces across KSC/CCAFS often lead to the development of mesoscale phenomena such as sea, river, and land breezes. These phenomena modify the prevailing synoptic wind, temperature, and stability fields, and can substantially impact space operations through sudden wind shifts and/or convective initiation. Due to the complex topography and the important role of mesoscale circulations during spacelift operations, a high-resolution network of 44 wind towers and five 915-MHz Doppler Radar Wind Profilers (DRWP) has been installed over the KSC/CCAFS area. This observational network helps forecasters to monitor the evolution of important mesoscale phenomena with precision. In addition, a local high-resolution configuration of the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) numerical weather prediction (NWP) model provides daily forecast guidance on the development and evolution of these phenomena.

Recent efforts by the Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) and Dynacs, Inc. have studied various mesoscale phenomena across KSC/CCAFS utilizing the unique combination of available observational and modeling tools. To assess the statistical properties of boundary-layer wind changes, quality-control routines were developed and modified by the AMU for the 915-MHz DRWPs to remove erroneous data prior to analysis. Examination of the quality-controlled data revealed the profiler network's ability to provide high temporal resolution observations of the vertical structure of several mesoscale phenomena including sea and land breezes, low-level jets, and frontal passages. In a recent AMU study, wind tower and 915-MHz DRWP data were used to examine the structural characteristics of nocturnal land breezes, and to develop a seven-year land-breeze composite that provides climatological tools for predicting the land-breeze occurrence, timing, and movement. Finally, Dynacs and the AMU developed an objective technique to detect sea-breeze boundaries within the tower network, and to verify these boundaries as predicted by RAMS. The technique was designed to improve the objective verification of NWP models by creating an automated, phenomenological-based validation tool. This paper will present an integrated analysis of a sea/land breeze event from May 2000 using the unique combination of observational data and forecast verification tools described above.