Low-level Jet at White Sands Missile Range

Abstract

Wind data collected at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, frequently show a sharp maximum in the wind speed profile below 3000 ft. This low-level maximum is often supergeostrophic and associated with large values of wind shear in the lower levels. Although the jet-like wind profile is predominantly a nocturnal phenomenon and the ?nose? of the profile is usually near the height of the nocturnal temperature inversion, significant low-level wind maxima are sometimes found in the daytime; in some cases the jet ?nose? seems to have little or no spatial relationship with the thermal stratification. In a few cases the jet formed or persisted even though lapse conditions prevailed from the ground upward to varying heights, and there were cases in which a temperature inversion developed during the night, but a significant low-level wind maximum was not evident.