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    Wind Shear: Example of Little or No Vertical Wind Shear

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    tori1760
    This document discusses wind shear and hodographs. It provides examples of little and significant wind shear. A hodograph displays changes in wind speed and direction with height through plotted wind vectors. It allows one to visualize wind profiles and identify storm types. An example hodograph plots wind data from multiple heights, connecting the vectors to show the wind increasing and changing direction clockwise with height, indicating wind shear.

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    Wind Shear: Example of Little or No Vertical Wind Shear

    Uploaded by

    tori1760
    184 views13 pages
    This document discusses wind shear and hodographs. It provides examples of little and significant wind shear. A hodograph displays changes in wind speed and direction with height through plotted wind vectors. It allows one to visualize wind profiles and identify storm types. An example hodograph plots wind data from multiple heights, connecting the vectors to show the wind increasing and changing direction clockwise with height, indicating wind shear.

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    hodograph

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    This document discusses wind shear and hodographs. It provides examples of little and significant wind shear. A hodograph displays changes in wind speed and direction with height through plotted wind vectors. It allows one to visualize wind profiles and identify storm types. An example hodograph plots wind data from multiple heights, connecting the vectors to show the wind increasing and changing direction clockwise with height, indicating wind shear.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    184 views13 pages

    Wind Shear: Example of Little or No Vertical Wind Shear

    Uploaded by

    tori1760
    This document discusses wind shear and hodographs. It provides examples of little and significant wind shear. A hodograph displays changes in wind speed and direction with height through plotted wind vectors. It allows one to visualize wind profiles and identify storm types. An example hodograph plots wind data from multiple heights, connecting the vectors to show the wind increasing and changing direction clockwise with height, indicating wind shear.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    of 13

    Wind Shear

    Example of little or no vertical wind


    shear:
    Height
    7 kts
    There is very little
    6 kts change in the speed
    or direction of the
    7 kts wind with height.

    6 kts

    1
    Hodograph
    A hodograph displays the change of
    wind speed and direction with height
    (vertical wind shear) in a simple
    diagram.

    Wind speed and direction are plotted as


    arrows (vectors) with their tails at the
    origin and the point in the direction
    toward which the wind is blowing. This
    is backward from our station model!!!
    2
    Hodograph
    The length of the arrows is
    proportional to the wind speed.
    The larger the wind speed, the
    longer the arrow.
    Normally only a dot is placed at the
    head of the arrow and the arrow
    itself is not drawn.
    The hodograph is completed by
    connecting the dots!
    3
    Hodograph
    Why Draw a Hodograph?
    We dont have to look through a
    complex table of numbers to see what
    the wind is doing.
    By looking at the shape of the
    hodograph curve we can see, at a
    glance, what type of storms may form.
    Air Mass (garden variety) storms
    Multicellular Storms
    Supercell Storms
    Tornadic Storms 4
    Hodograph -- Example
    Height (MSL) Direction Speed (kt)
    250 m (SFC) 160 10
    500 m 180 20
    1000 m 200 35
    1500 m 260 50
    2000 m 280 75

    Just by looking at this table, it is hard (without much


    experience) to see what the winds are doing and what
    the wind shear is. 5
    Hodograph -- Example
    Let us plot the
    2000 m
    winds using a
    station model
    diagram. 1500 m

    1000 m
    This is better
    but it is time
    consuming to 500 m
    draw and still is
    not that helpful. SFC
    6
    Hodograph -- Example
    Let us now draw the hodograph!
    160
    Let us draw the
    surface
    observation.
    160o at 10 kts

    Since the wind


    speed is 10 kt,
    the length of the
    arrow is only to
    the 10 knot ring.

    The direction
    points to 160o. 7
    Hodograph -- Example
    Let us now draw the 500 m observation.

    Let us draw the


    500 m
    observation:
    180o at 20 kts

    Since the wind


    speed is 20 kt,
    the length of the
    arrow is only to
    the 20 knot ring.

    The direction
    points to 180o. 8
    Hodograph -- Example
    Let us now draw the remaining observations.

    Let us draw the


    500 m
    observation:
    180o at 20 kts

    Since the wind


    speed is 20 kt,
    the length of the
    arrow is only to
    the 20 knot ring.

    The direction
    points to 180o. 9
    Hodograph -- Example
    We now place dots at the end of the arrows
    then erase the arrows.

    10
    Hodograph -- Example
    We then connect the dots with a smooth curve
    and label the points.

    This is the final


    hodograph!!! 1000 m

    500 m 1500 m
    SFC

    2000 m

    11
    Hodograph -- Example
    What can we learn from this diagram?
    We see that the wind speeds increase with
    height.
    We know this since the plotted points get
    farther from the origin as we go up.
    We see that the winds change direction
    with height.
    In this example we see that the hodograph
    is curved and it is curved clockwise.
    If we start at the surface (SFC) and follow the
    hodograph curve, we go in a clockwise
    direction!
    12
    Hodograph -- Example
    This hodograph is from
    Jackson, MS on 19 March
    1998 at 12Z.

    This is essentially a
    straight-line hodograph.
    The winds change direction
    near the surface and then
    are out of the west from
    about 600 mb up.

    There is a maximum in the


    wind speed at about 150 mb
    then the winds slow down
    a bit.

    This computer generated hodograph does not plot the height


    levels on the diagram. The height data may be omitted if
    there are a lot of data points to plot.
    13

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