The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) is developing both a tornadic and severe nontornadic sample of supercell storms from 2014. This latest work is an extension of earlier research which led to the development of conditional probabilities of tornado damage rating from near-storm environment and radar-based storm-scale characteristics from a 5-year sample of tornadoes (4,770) reported in the contig...

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Standard 61400-1 for the design of wind turbines does not explicitly address site-specific conditions associated with anomalous atmospheric events or conditions. Examples of off-standard atmospheric conditions include thunderstorm downbursts, hurricanes, tornadoes, low-level jets, etc. The simulation of thunderstorm downbursts and associated l...

A method is developed to adjust the Kaplan and DeMaria tropical cyclone inland wind decay model for storms that move over narrow landmasses. The basic assumption that the wind speed decay rate after landfall is proportional to the wind speed is modified to include a factor equal to the fraction of the storm circulation that is over land. The storm circulation is defined as a circular area with ...

Evaporation from the sea surface, primarily within a hurricane’s core, provides the heat energy required to intensify and maintain the storm (e.g. Cione and Uhlhorn 2003, Emanuel 2003, and references therein). If the sea surface temperature (SST) decreases within the storm core, so does the heat energy available to the storm. Generally, in the deep ocean, SST cooling within the storm core occur...

The observed decline of spring dust storms in Northeast Asia since the 1950s has been attributed to surface wind stilling. However, spring vegetation growth could also restrain dust storms through accumulating aboveground biomass and increasing surface roughness. To investigate the impacts of vegetation spring growth on dust storms, we examine the relationships between recorded spring dust stor...

Storm surge, the onshore rush of sea water caused by the high winds and low pressure associated with a hurricane, can compound the effects of inland flooding caused by rainfall, leading to loss of property and loss of life for residents of coastal areas. Numerical ocean models are essential for creating storm surge forecasts for coastal areas. These models are driven primarily by the surface wi...

In this two-part study, a single-Doppler parameter retrieval technique is developed and applied to a real-data case to provide model initial conditions for a short-range prediction of a supercell thunderstorm. The technique consists of the sequential application of a single-Doppler velocity retrieval (SDVR), followed by a variational velocity adjustment, a thermodynamic retrieval, and a moistur...

A large-eddy simulation (LES) model, which adopts wave-averaged equations with vortex force, is used to investigate Langmuir turbulence and ocean boundary layer (OBL) dynamics in high-wind hurricane conditions. The temporally evolving spatially asymmetric wind and wave Stokes drift velocity imposed in the LES are generated by a spectral wave prediction model adapted to Hurricane Frances traveli...

Climatological surface wind speed probability density functions (PDFs) estimated from observations are characterized and used to evaluate, for the first time, contemporaneous wind PDFs predicted by a GCM. The observations include NASA’s global Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) dataset, the NCEP/ Department of Energy Global Reanalysis 2 (NCEP-2) 6-hourly reanalysis, and the Tropical Atmosphere Ocea...