Thursday, December 1, 2011

The Big 100

A Union Pacific observing site just off I-15 near Centerville has now recorded a 102 mph wind gust.  The accuracy of that instrument will need to be verified, but it appears we have now entered triple digits.


Here at the U, the peak gust of 69 mph occurred overnight, although we are still gusting at times over 60 mph and walking is a bit challenging.


There's plenty of downed tree branches and debris flying around.  The photos below are fuzzy as it is almost impossible to hold my camera phone steady in the wind.  Be careful.

Downed construction fences near the Field House
Large downed conifer on Virginia Avenue

4 comments:

  1. All: Have a look at some of the time series of individual stations. At WBB there was a 3.5 hPa drop between 0320-0340 MST at the start of the wind event. In Boulder windstorms we often see such mesolows but they usually last for hours; this one did not. Also, puzzling that there was no similar drop at the Museum station just to our east. As is normal in these large-amplitude wave events, move a little upstream or downstream and there is little wind; SL Airport has a light wind from the W.

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  2. Ed - Great minds think alike. We were just looking at that. Note how the winds dropped some after that initial push, accompanied by a rise in pressure and a slight veering of the wind to easterly. The same thing is happening now.

    Meanwhile, it is still blowing very hard in Centerville.

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  3. Impressive wind storm! Might've been stronger than any I saw while there. I haven't look at this event in any detail, so I don't know if there was a preexisting inversion, but came across this new paper this morning and thought the timing was rather convenient:
    http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011MWR3619.1

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  4. Yes, this could be a potentially important paper as it sounds like there's a lot of applicability to Utah downslope windstorms.

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