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Published: 1979

Total Pages: 147

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The Dulles International Airport wind and wind shear detection system recorded more than 160 events from November 1976 through March 1978. Eighty-two percent of 113 significant events occurred in conjunction with thunderstorms, squall-lines and frontal passages. The chief source of false alarms for anemometers was boundary layer disturbances representing 10% of the total; while gravity shear waves related to the 500mb winds caused the most false alarms for pressure sensors (4% of the total). Using complementary arrays of wind and pressure sensors, total system false alarms can be greatly reduced. These data demonstrate the importance of stable surface layers in determining how well surface temperature and wind measurements represent flow at higher levels and explain underestimates of system severity. Moreover, because we demonstrate the value of wind vector information and since temperature is a scaler quantity, there seems little operational value in using temperature sensors as part of a detection system. Conversely, pressure sensors will not reliably detect relatively thin outflows (100-200 M thick) occurring at a distance from downflows having small dimensions. Again, the wind and pressure sensors combine to provide a total system offering good reliability for detection of thunderstorm outflows. The results suggest an array configuration (composed of wind and pressure jump sensors) for use in airport warning systems. This configuration extending about 10km from the airport provides a warning for Thunderstorm gust-fronts.