Evaluation of schemes for estimating surface-wind strength

Abstract

Three methods of estimating local surface-wind strength on the basis of remote measurements are compared against actual measurements at up to 12 places in the Sydney region. The methods involve (i) assuming a uniform wind in the region (equal to that at Observatory Hill), (ii) scalar interpolation between values measured by the nearest instruments, or (iii) vector interpolation. For each method, additional climatological information is then provided in terms of Linacre's concept of the “windiness ratio”, the local wind strength as a fraction of that at a reference station. Comparisons for each hour of four selected days show that the estimates of each method are improved by using this information. This suggests that the windiness concept may be useful in specifying wind fields, especially in complicated topography.