Monitoring, cataloguing, and weather scenarios of thunderstorm outflows in the northern Mediterranean

Abstract

Abstract. High sampling rate (10 Hz) anemometric measurements of the Wind, Ports, and Sea monitoring network in the northern Tyrrhenian Sea have been analysed to extract the thunderstorm-related signals and catalogue them into three families according to the different time-scale of each event, subdivided among 10 min, 1, and 10 h events. Their characteristics in terms of direction of motion and seasonality/daily occurrence have been analysed: the results showed that most of the selected events come from the sea and occur from 12:00 to 00:00 UTC during the winter season. In terms of peak wind speed, the strongest events all belonged to the 10 min family, but no systematic correlation was found between event duration and peaks.Three events, each one representative of the corresponding class of duration, have been analysed from the meteorological point of view, in order to investigate their physical nature. According to this analysis, which was mainly based on satellite images, meteorological fields obtained from GFS analyses related to convection in the atmosphere, and lightning activity, the thunderstorm-related nature of the 10 min and 1 h events was confirmed. The 10 h event turned out to be a synoptic event, related to extra-tropical cyclone activity.

Investigation of the Weather Conditions During the Collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa on 14 August 2018 Using Field Observations and WRF Model

“…This is shown in Figure 12, which is a representation of the wind velocity vectors (1 min averaged) obtained from the measurements of the 8 anemometers in the Port of Genoa: Figure 12a depicts the situation prior to the thunderstorm occurrence, at 08:50 UTC when the wind was blowing from the mountains; Figure 12b shows the gust front that, at 09:25 UTC, had reached the western stations; afterwards, the outflow intensifies and affects all stations (Figure 12c), which, at 09:35 UTC, showed a radial outflow-like diverging pattern (notice the southerly flow at station 07 that possibly produced a flow channeling in the Polcevera Valley towards the bridge location, indicated by the blue line); finally, at 09:40, the outflow center had moved to the east of the stations, as all the wind vectors pointed westward. Recently, Burlando et al [15] demonstrated that the majority of thunderstorm downbursts in this region are generated over the sea and then advance towards the shore. A similar trend in terms of downburst formation and movement was also reported by Burlando et al [2] for a downburst event in the Port of Livorno, Italy, on 1 October 2012.…”

“…Note that the timing of the gust front in Figure 13 is coherent with the maximum wind speeds recorded by anemometer 11 (Figure 11). The lidar scanned four different elevation angles ( ) between Recently, Burlando et al [15] demonstrated that the majority of thunderstorm downbursts in this region are generated over the sea and then advance towards the shore. A similar trend in terms of downburst formation and movement was also reported by Burlando et al [2] for a downburst event in the Port of Livorno, Italy, on 1 October 2012.…”

The Toppling of an Irrigation Center Pivot Submitted to Wind Action Effects

“…The areas for equipment installation have irregularities, slopes, gaps, and ditches, in addition to being exposed to winds, which have been registered more frequently in the South-Center region of Brazil (Hornes & Balicki, 2018). According to Burlando et al (2018), the main effect of air movement (or natural wind) is due to the heating of the Earth's atmosphere, starting with the pressure difference between points of the same height. These differences occur due to thermodynamic and mechanical phenomena occurring in the non-uniform atmosphere.…”

“…Engenharia Agrícola, Jaboticabal, v.39, n.2, p.150-157, mar./apr. 2019 Burlando et al (2018). Piccardo et al (2018) reported the main effects caused by the response of structures when submitted to the dynamic effects of winds, which is the kinetic energy of gusts on irrigation pivots.…”

Performance-based wind engineering framework for vertical structures subjected to nonstationary wind loads

“…However, these have lasted for only a few months at a time (typically late spring to mid summer) and pale in comparison to the yearly, high-resolution monitoring that is capable for synoptic phenomena. More recent efforts to provide high resolution measurements have been undertaken in Italy by the University of Genoa, Italy through the "Wind and Ports" (Solari et al, 2012), "Wind, Ports and Sea" and "THUNDERR" (Burlando et al, 2018) data acquisition campaigns, but as of yet the supply of field observations needed for sufficient statistical analysis is still limited. The vast collection of historical reports from weather stations such as the Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) of the NWS do contain thunderstorm wind speed data, but they are very low resolution, providing only a singular peak wind speed, and require many simplifying assumptions and data manipulation that exacerbate uncertainty and variability in order to properly use.…”