An Economical Approach to the Use of Wind Data in the Optimum Interpolation of Geo- and Montgomery Potential Fields

Abstract

A method for analyzing height fields from simultaneous observations of height and wind is proposed which combines Gandin's optimum interpolation concept with the classical approach of extrapolating height values geostrophically to a grid point from surrounding stations. While recently developed multivariate optimum interpolation techniques using both height and wind data result in a somewhat smaller rms error of the analyzed height field than the present method, they require approximately 33 times as much computer time.