A Method to Validate Simulated Mountain Wave Impacts on Hub-Height Wind Speed Using SoDAR Observations

When stably stratified air ascends a mountain barrier, it can trigger the generation of mountain waves (MWs). Recent studies have shown that MWs occur frequently over the Columbia River Gorge in western North America and that they can impact wind power generation in the area. Therefore, predicting the details of such MWs events (e.g., dominant wavelength, timing, and duration) can be very valuable for wind energy community. In this study, the WRF’s ability of simulating such MW activities is investigated. Using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), we extract the simulated MWs and compare them with both satellite and field observations. For wind energy application, we select a wavelength range from 8 to 20 km and a wave period from 1 to 4 hour as the targeted MWs. Our results suggest that reconstructed MWs can sufficiently capture the simulated MWs in the WRF simulations. In addition, the timing of reconstructed wave signals shows a statistically significant positive correlation with the observations within the 0 to 1 hour. The uncertainties of the choice of wavelength and wave period in our method are discussed.