In this work, a controls-oriented wake model is modified and compared to an analytical Gaussian wake model and high-fidelity simulation data. This model, called the curled wake model, captures a wake phenomenon that occurs behind yawed turbines, modeled as a collection of vortices shed from the rotor plane. Through turbine simulations, these vortices are shown to have a significant impact on the prediction of wake steering's performance. Also, optimizations using the model are performed and produce results consistent with recent published research. Results indicate that wind farm controllers designed 5 and analyzed with the curled wake model produce wake steering controllers which can realize larger gains in power production than previously estimated. Overall, the results support the concept of secondary steering, or a yawed turbine's ability to deflect the wake of a downstream turbine, and suggest that future turbine wake studies and yaw optimizations should include the curled wake phenomenon.have been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of wake steering (Wagenaar et al., 2012;Fleming et al., 2017). Fleming et al. (2019) found a 13% increase in energy on a downstream turbine for two closely spaced turbines within a 10 • bin, consistent with prior predictions from different models. Howland et al. (2019) leveraged site-specific, historical operational data to develop a wake control scheme that was tested in a land-based wind power plant in Alberta, Canada. The controller resulted in power increases of 7%-47% for wind conditions that commonly occur at night, as well as a decrease in variability 5 of power production of up to 72%.Alongside theoretical and experimental studies, engineering models have been crafted to predict wake steering and assess its overall benefit. One controls-oriented tool used in the design and study of turbine wake controls is the FLOw Redirection and Induction in Steady State (FLORIS) model . Originally based on the Jensen (Jensen, 1984) andJiménez (Jiménez et al., 2010) models, FLORIS has evolved into a software repository that contains several wake models. More 10