Observations of Gulf of Tehuantepec Gap Wind Events from QuikSCAT: An Updated Event Climatology and Operational Model Evaluation

Abstract

A climatology of gale- and storm-force gap wind events in the Gulf of Tehuantepec is constructed for the first time using 10 yr of ocean surface vector wind data from the SeaWinds scatterometer on board NASA?s Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) satellite. These wind events are among the most severe that occur within the National Hurricane Center?s (NHC) area of marine forecasting responsibility outside of tropical cyclones. The 10-yr climatology indicates that on average 11.9 gale-force events and 6.4 storm-force events occur in the Gulf of Tehuantepec each cold season. About 84% of these events occur between November and March, with the largest number of gale-force events occurring in December. Storm-force events are most frequent in January. Operational numerical weather prediction model forecasts of these events from the NCEP Global Forecast System (GFS) and North American Mesoscale (NAM) models were evaluated during the 2006/07 cold season. Results show that neither model is able to consistently forecast storm-force Tehuantepec wind events; however, the models do have some ability to forecast gale-force events. The NAM model showed a significant increase in probability of detection over the GFS, possibly due to increased horizontal and vertical resolutions as well as differences in boundary layer mixing and surface flux schemes. Finally, the prospects of observing these gap wind events in the post-QuikSCAT era will be discussed.