Surface meteorological data collected at a mesonetwork in
Colorado during the 1973 National Hail Research Experiment were
analyzed to see if a diurnal oscillation of boundary layer wind exists
and also to determine the mechanism that drives the wind system.
The average temperature, pressure, and wind velocity for a month's
time were computed in order to filter out synoptic disturbances.
The analysis of averaged daily potential temperature distribution
shows that, during the study period, air is always stable along
the slope at night and is stable over 75% of the time during the daylight
hours. This implies that nighttime downslope flow is driven by
baroclinity and strongly influenced by frictional effects. This analysis
also shows that differences in horizontal potential temperature are
minimal at the time of day when hail activity is statistically a
maximum.
Hodographs obtained from averaging wind velocities show that
the air flow is upslope during the afternoon and downslope at night.
This type of air movement is attributed to baroclinicity caused by
diurnal heating along a slope.
Spectral analysis of wind speeds at two stations shows
numerous peaks and valleys in various spectra. Several of these
peaks are attributed to diurnal and inertial oscillations. / Graduation date: 1975
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/29302 |
| Date | 28 October 1974 |
| Creators | Chan, Michael W. |
| Contributors | Mahrt, Larry J. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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