Extreme Wind Climatology

In general, extreme wind events are difficult to find in archived meteorological records because they are infrequent, short lived and of a spatial scale that’s greatly less than that of the network of weather reporting stations that exist.  Despite the importance that these extreme wind speeds have in the design of wind-resistant infrastructure, little quantitative data exists regarding their properties and rate of occurrence.  The goal of this research is to develop techniques for amassing accurate and complete wind speed time histories at locations where historical weather information is available and then utilizing extreme value methodologies to project what extreme wind conditions could be seen in the future at any location of interest .  Additionally, techniques for improving the detection and accurate reporting of small scale extreme wind events (such as severe thunderstorms) are being actively developed and bring in a host of other concepts ranging from atmospheric dynamics to characteristic waveform analysis.