2002 Annual

Monday, 14 January 2002
Synoptic Climatology for the Mt. Washington Region:1955-1999, and its relation
John Hopkins Gillman, Plymouth State College, Plymouth, NH; and B. D'Agostino
The Mt. Washington Icing Sensors Project (MWISP) field campaign was conducted in April 1999 to gather remotely sensed and in situ data for the purpose of trying to "see" areas of aircraft icing potential. The initial synoptic weather study by Markle et al. (2000) concentrated on the month of April. They found that April 1999 was an anomalous month for the region, due to higher than normal occurrences of certain synoptic patterns unfavorable for aircraft icing when compared to the most April months of the previous 44 years. The current study continues the methodology of that previous study and extends it to cover all the months from 1955 through 1999 in order to develop detailed monthly synoptic climatologies and variations for Mt. Washington region. The climatologies will also be analyzed in the context of icing potential by combining the synoptic climatologies with actual Mt. Washington archived weather data. The team used NCAR/NCEP reanalysis fields, daily weather charts, and observational data for the region to categorize both surface and upper air patterns as specific types. This study is still in progress and so far most of the monthly climatologies have been completed. This paper will report on the methodology used to generate surface and upper air synoptic climatologies for all the months for the Mt. Washington area and correlate the conditions to assess the months with greatest icing potential based on a 45-year period of record.

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