Extended Abstract (1.2M)J3.13
An updated warm-season convective wind climatology for the Florida space coast
Kristin A. Cummings, Plymouth State University, Plymouth, NH; and E. J. Dupont, A. J. Loconto, J. P. Koermer, and W. P. Roeder
An updated convective wind climatology was developed for the Florida Space Coast. This convective wind climatology was developed using 11 years (1995-2005) of warm-season (May-September) wind data from 41 weather towers over a 30 x 40 Km area on and around Kennedy Space Center (KSC)/Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS). Other observational data were also used such as the surface observations at the Space Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC, radar, satellite, lightning, and GPS-based Precipitable Water.. Warnings for strong convective winds account for the second highest (after lightning) number of weather warnings issued by the Air Force 45th Weather Squadron (45WS) for the KSC/CCAFS area. This climatology will help in mission planning and forecaster training. In developing this climatology, significant effort was spent on quality control of the observed data; identification of convective regimes with little pressure gradient influence; stratifying the data by year, month, time of day, tower, tower elevation, and synoptic flow regime; and examining “ramp up” times for warning level winds following convective initiation. This extensive database will be available to other researchers for additional studies. Other non-climatological parts of this research included verifying the performance of numerous convective wind skew-T parameters (T1, T2, MDPI, WINDEX, WMSI, and Snyder Method), verifying the performance of the radar-based Echo Top/VIL warning technique, and developing a new skew-T forecast tool based on the lapse rate of e. This paper will summarize only the climatological aspects of this research.
Joint Session 3, Observations and Data Sets (Joint between 14th Symposium on Meteorological Observations and Instrumentation and the 16th Conference on Applied Climatology)
Thursday, 18 January 2007, 8:30 AM-5:30 PM, 206A
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