The landfalls of extreme hurricane events in recent years reveal the need for more accurate predictions of winds during landfalling tropical cyclone events to help reduce property damage. The goal of this study is to develop a high-resolution surface wind exposure model that incorporates an effective roughness model. In this study, the wind model calculates flight- level winds of a rankine- like vortex in a simple synthetic large-scale environment at a 1 km resolution. The flight-level winds are then reduced to 10 m using a reduction scheme based on GPS dropwindsonde profiles. The roughness component calculates the effective roughness length using a radial weight function based on the source area model developed by Schmid and Oke, with an upwind fetch of 5 km. The weight function is dependent on the distance from sensor, sensor height, surface roughness (approximately 100 m resolution), and the Monin-Obukov length. The weighted average of roughness values is taken over 8 possible wind directions to give a more sophisticated effective roughness length for all land points. The high-resolution wind exposure model provides realistic analyses for hurricane Andrew (1992), Erin (1995), Kate (1985), and Donna (1960) at the time of their Florida landfalls. It is also useful for recreating historical hurricane case studies. There is a potential for further development into a real-time analysis and forecasting tool during tropical cyclone landfall events. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Meteorology in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Masters of Science. / Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2003. / Date of Defense: September 23, 2003. / Hurricane model, risk management, wind model / Includes bibliographical references. / T. N. Krishnamurti, Professor Directing Thesis; Paul H. Ruscher, Committee Member; Philip Cunningham, Committee Member; Steven Cocke, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_168081 |
| Contributors | Axe, Lizabeth Marie (authoraut), Krishnamurti, T. N. (professor directing thesis), Ruscher, Paul H. (committee member), Cunningham, Philip (committee member), Cocke, Steven (committee member), Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
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