Research Abstracts 1993-1994: Report No. 94-02

Barbour, P.L. and S. N. Walker, "Identification of the Circulation Patterns Associated with Extreme Winds," OSU Wind Research Cooperative, WRC Report No. 94-02, July 20, 1994, 69pp., $17.25
 

A need exists to identify the meteorological conditions associated with specific types of critical events. The work presented here outlines a methodology that can be used to quickly identify the general type of circulation pattern associated with such events and allow additional parameters to be found that describe the more specific mechanisms responsible. The method is applied here to the examination of extreme winds at Cape Blanco, a strong wind site on the south coast of Oregon. Results show that data for an adequate number of cases must be available in order to establish the necessary relationship between the events and the individual circulation patterns. This could be difficult for rare events or when only a short period of data is available. Application of this method to extreme winds shows that such events are most often associated with intense cases of commonly occurring circulation patterns rather than with unique or unusual patterns. The usefulness of this method in developing methods to forecast critical events is also discussed.