Wind shear

About: Wind shear is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 8023 publications have been published within this topic receiving 185373 citations.

Origins and Mechanisms of Eastern Pacific Tropical Cyclogenesis: A Case Study

Abstract: The genesis of Hurricane Hernan (1996) in the eastern Pacific was investigated using gridded analyses from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and gridded outgoing longwave radiation. Hernan developed in association with a wave in the easterlies that could be tracked back to Africa in longitude‐time plots of the filtered y component of the wind (2‐6-day period) at 700 mb. The wave crossed Central America near Lake Nicaragua with little change in its southwest‐northeast tilt, but the most intense convection shifted from near the wave axis in the Caribbean to west of the wave axis in the Pacific. The wave intensified as it moved through a barotropically unstable background state (defined by a low-pass filter with a 20-day cutoff ) in the western Caribbean and eastern Pacific. A surge in the southwesterly monsoons and enhanced convection along 108N occurred to the west of the 700-mb wave in the Pacific and traveled with the wave. This had the effect of enhancing low-level vorticity over a wide region ahead of the 700-mb wave. Available evidence suggests that additional low-level vorticity was produced by enhanced flow from the north through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec as the 700-mb wave approached. Depression formation did not occur until 6‐12 h after the 700mb wave reached this region of large low-level vorticity in the Gulf of Tehuantepec. Eastern Pacific SST and vertical wind shear magnitude are typically favorable for tropical cyclone development in Northern Hemisphere summer and early fall. Because the favorable mountain interaction and the surge in the low-level monsoons appear to relate directly to the wave in the easterlies, it is argued that the strength of such waves reaching Central America from the east is the single most important factor in whether subsequent eastern Pacific cyclogenesis occurs. Possible parallels with western Pacific cyclogenesis are discussed.

A water vapour flux tool for precipitation forecasting

Abstract: The skill of quantitative precipitation forecasts is poor, especially for extreme events. This paper describes a new tool that combines wind observations aloft (from wind profiling radars) with vertically integrated water vapour (IWV) measurements derived from global positioning system (GPS) receivers to estimate the bulk transport of water vapour. This transport strongly influences precipitation enhancement by mountains. Based on earlier research, a controlling wind layer is defined, which has maximum correlation between the horizontal component of the wind directed upslope at the coast and the rainfall measured downwind in the mountains. The altitude of the maximum correlation (∼ 1 km above sea level) often corresponds to the altitude of the low-level jet that typically resides in the region of enhanced water vapour transport ahead of an approaching cyclone's cold front (i.e. in the atmospheric river portion of the storm). The wind at this level usually differs from the wind at the surface, pointing to ...

Composite VORTEX2 Supercell Environments from Near-Storm Soundings

Abstract: Three-dimensional composite analyses using 134 soundings from the second Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment (VORTEX2) reveal the nature of near-storm variability in the environments of supercell thunderstorms. Based upon the full analysis, it appears that vertical wind shear increases as one approaches a supercell within the inflow sector, providing favorable conditions for supercell maintenance (and possibly tornado formation) despite small amounts of low-level cooling near the storm. The seven analyzed tornadic supercells have a composite environment that is clearly more impressive (in terms of widely used metrics) than that of the five analyzed nontornadic supercells, including more convective available potential energy (CAPE), more vertical wind shear, higher boundary layer relative humidity, and lower tropospheric horizontal vorticity that is more streamwise in the near-storm inflow. The widely used supercell composite parameter (SCP) and significant tornado param...

Retrieval of Ocean Surface Wind Speed and Wind Direction Using Reflected GPS Signals

Abstract: Global positioning system (GPS) signals reflected from the ocean surface can be used for various remote sensing purposes. Some possibilities include measurements of surface roughness characteristics from which the rms of wave slopes, wind speed, and direction could be determined. In this paper, reflected GPS measurements that were collected using aircraft with a delay mapping GPS receiver are used to explore the possibility of determining ocean surface wind speed and direction during flights to Hurricanes Michael and Keith in October 2000. To interpret the GPS data, a theoretical model is used to describe the correlation power of the reflected GPS signals for different time delays as a function of geometrical and sea-roughness parameters. The model employs a simple relationship between surface-slope statistics and both a wind vector and wave age or fetch. Therefore, for situations when this relationship holds there is a possibility of indirectly measuring the wind speed and the wind direction. Wind direction estimates are based on a multiple-satellite nonlinear least squares solution. The estimated wind speed using surface-reflected GPS data collected at wind speeds between 5 and 10 ms 21 shows an overall agreement of better than 2 m s 21 with data obtained from nearby buoy data and independent wind speed measurements derived from TOPEX/Poseidon, European Remote Sensing (ERS), and QuikSCAT observations. GPS wind retrievals for strong winds in the close vicinity to and inside the hurricane are significantly less accurate. Wind direction agreement with QuikSCAT measurements appears to be at the 308 level when the airplane has both a stable flight level and a stable flight direction. Discrepancies between GPS retrieved wind speeds/directions and those obtained by other means are discussed and possible explanations are proposed.

Coherent lidar airborne windshear sensor: performance evaluation

Abstract: As part of the NASA/FAA National Integrated Windshear Program, a measurable windshear hazard index has been defined that can be remotely sensed from an aircraft, to give the pilot information about the wind conditions along the flight path. A technology analysis and end-to-end performance simulation measuring signal-to-noise ratios and resulting wind velocity errors for competing coherent laser radar (lidar) systems have been carried out. The results show that a Ho:YAG lidar at a wavelength of 2.1 microns and a CO2 lidar at 10.6 microns can give the pilot information about the line-of-sight component of a windshear threat from his present position to a region extending 2-4 km in front of the aircraft. This constitutes a warning time of 20-40 s, even in conditions of moderately heavy precipitation.