The Role of Surface Friction in Downslope Windstorms

Abstract

Numerical simulations of the 11 January 1972 windstorm in Boulder, Colorado, were carded out using a hydrostatic model with a turbulent kinetic energy parameterization to investigate the role of fictional effects in the development of nonlinear mountain waves. Sensitivity tests to the roughness length specification and to the turbulent mixing and dissipation length formulations show that surface friction delays the onset of the strong surface winds and also prevents the downstream propagation of the zone of maximum windspeed. Shear production within convectively stable regions is the dominant mechanism for the production of the turbulent kinetic energy. Moreover, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that a hydrostatic amplification mechanism is capable of accounting for the development of strong downslope winds.