5th Symposium on Fire and Forest Meteorology and the 2nd International Wildland Fire Ecology and Fire Management Congress

Wednesday, 19 November 2003: 4:45 PM
An initial analysis of relationships between 2- and 10-minute averaged winds at 10, 6, and 1.8 meters: implications for fire behavior and danger applications
Larry S. Bradshaw, U.S. Forest Service, Missoula, MT; and E. Petrescu and I. Grenfell
Poster PDF (471.6 kB)
Recently there has been much discussion about the relationship between traditional 10-minute average NFDRS wind observations and forecasts at 20-feet, 2-minute average 10-meter winds from NWS ASOS sites and mid-flame (1.8 meter) masts from the new Fire RAWS. This paper reports on an initial investigation based on 3 RM Young ultrasonic anemometers located at 10-meters, 6-meters (20-feet), and 1.8 meters (6-feet) above the ground on the same mast. Sampling at a rate of 10 Hz, 1-second averaged data were collected at a number of locations in western Montana during the summer of 2003. Characteristics of the wind speed probability distributions and correlations between the sampling heights and averaging times are presented.

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