Tennessee Valley Extreme Wind Speed Climatology

Abstract

The hydrologic design of dams and determining flood levels for nuclear plant siting requires postulating windwave occurrence concurrent with maximum flood levels. Practical postulations of windwave magnitudes require knowledge of wind probabilities by direction and time of year. Probability estimates of daily extreme 30‐minute and 60‐minute wind speeds are presented for each direction for the months of March, April, and June through September for the Tennessee Valley. Some broad guidelines concerning generalized regions of homogeneous wind speeds are also presented. The methods used are applicable to a wide variety of applied problems requiring analyses of wind extremes and comparisons between frequency distributions.