Advancements in the Investigation of Vertical Profiles of Thunderstorm Outflows

Description

The dynamic complexity and unpredictability of the occurrence of thunderstorms make it difficult to collect reliable and systematic measurements of this atmospheric phenomenon, which are definitely needed to evaluate its action on structures. The area of the Northern Tyrrhenian Sea is a "hot-spot" for the genesis of severe potentially damaging wind phenomena, such as downbursts, whose occurrence in this geographical region is not well documented. In the context of the two European projects "Wind and Ports" and "Wind, Ports and Sea", a large and complex wind monitoring network has been installed in this area. Since the years 2014-2015, this network is equipped with three LiDAR profilers which provide vertical scanning of the atmosphere up to 250 m above the ground level. All the wind profiles have been systematically analysed in order to detect the ones that can be referred to thunderstorm events. The aim of this study is to extend a first set of analyses up to mid-2018 to provide a preliminary investigation of the main parameters describing the non-synoptic events and a first classification of thunderstorm events into different subsets.

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