Saturday, 13 January 2007
Methods for a Warm-Season Convective Wind Climatology for the Florida Space Coast
An updated convective wind climatology was developed for the Florida Space Coast. This 11-year (1995-2005) warm-season (May-September) climatology was developed from data from 42 tower sites within a 30 X 40 km area of Kennedy Space Center (KSC)/Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS). Strong convective winds are the second-most frequent warning issued by the Air Force 45th Weather Squadron (45WS) for this region. The convective wind climatology was developed for forecaster training purposes at CCAFS. Wind data were quality controlled, and data were also eliminated for periods with strong synoptic pressure gradients and from towers that reported less than 70% of all possible observations. Other observational data, used to make convective period identifications, included nearby suface METARs, radar, infrared satellite, flow regime, GFS-based Integrated Precipitable Water, and CGLSS lightning. Analyses of the convective wind observations were stratified by elevation, direction, tower location, and time of day. Convective periods were also stratified by year, month, maximum wind speed, synoptic flow regime, integrated precipitable water, and lightning density. The research also included statistical analyses using Gumbel curves and integration of the area under the curve to determine the percentage of events that met 45WS warning criteria. This paper will summarize the methods used in collecting and analyzing the convective wind data in the 11-year climatology.
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