Observation and Analysis of the Modification of Landfalling Storms by Coastally Trapped Flows
Abstract
LONG-TERM GOALS. The goal of this project is to better understand the interaction of cool season storm features such as fronts, with coastal terrain. The focus is on gathering the information necessary to determine the current limitations of mesoscale numerical weather prediction (NWP) model forecasts of these phenomena, and ultimately to help guide improvements in their sub-grid scale parameterizations. OBJECTIVES. Our project is intended to complement the research being conducted on warm season coastal phenomena along the U.S. West Coast, which involves a different type of marine boundary layer and large-scale background forcing. The specific objective of our work has been to collect and analyze observations of the evolution of turbulent-scale and mesoscale storm structures in the vicinity of coastal terrain. These observations are forming the basis for comprehensive validations of high-resolution NWP simulation experiments. This work is supported by ONR Marine Meteorology. APPROACH. Observational case studies are being carried out based largely on data collected by a NOAA P-3 research aircraft during the Coastal Observation and Simulation with Topography (COAST) field experiments of December 1993 and 1995. The focus of our particular work is on documenting the characteristics of the low-level turbulence using measurements from the gust-probe/radome system on the P-3. The turbulent structures are being analyzed in the context of the mean mesoscale flow determined from the flight-level and airborne Doppler radar observations. These observations are being compared with specific details from high-resolution NWP simulations, currently with NRL's Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS), and in the future, with the Penn State/NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5). Special attention is being devoted towards evaluating the turbulence parameterizations in these models.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 1997
- Accession Number
- ADA633492
Entities
People
- J. E. Overland
- N. A. Bond
Organizations
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration