Severe Downslope Windstorm Calculations in Two and Three Spatial Dimensions Using Anelastic Interactive Grid Nesting: A Possible Mechanism for Gustiness

Abstract

The Clark nonhydrostatic anelastic code is extended to allow for interactive grid nesting in both two and three spatial dimensions. Tests are presented which investigate the accuracy of three different quadratic interpolation formulae which are used to derive boundary conditions for the fine mesh model. Application of the conservation condition of Kurihara and others is shown to result in significant improvements in the treatment of interactive nesting. A significant improvement in the solutions for interactive versus parasitic nesting is also shown in the context of forced gravity wave flow. This result, for the anelastic system, is in agreement with the earlier results of Phillips and Shukla, who considered the hydrostatic shallow water system of equations. The interactive nesting model is applied to the simulation of the severe downslope windstorm of 11 January 1972 in Boulder using both two and three spatial dimensions. The three-dimensional simulation results in a gustiness signature in the surface wind speed. The cause of this gustiness is attributed to the development of turbulent eddies in the convectively unstable region of the topographically forced wave. These eddies are transported to the surface by downdrafts formed in the leading edge of the convectively unstable region. A type of periodicity to the wind gustiness signature is then produced by a competition between the two physical processes of wave build up via forced gravity wave dynamics and wave breakdown via convective instability. The actual source/sink terms for the turbulence are still under investigation. Some preliminary comparisons between the two- and three-dimensional windstorm simulations are also presented.