A Synoptic Climatology for Environmental Baseline Analysis: New Orleans

Abstract

Standard climatological observations made between 1971 and 1974 at Moisant Airport, New Orleans, have been organized into a calendar of eight synoptic weather types identified from the daily surface weather maps of the United States. The hourly data have been reorganized into tables representing monthly frequencies of weather types, mean properties at 0600 and 1500 CST, and relationships to precipitation. The climatic calendar and associated climatic properties by weather types represent climatic baseline inventories useful for evaluating favorable conditions for activities dependent upon weather such as construction and recreation, local and regional climatic variation by weather type and season, climatic variability through time, and the responses of environmental and biological processes and activities at the earth-atmosphere interface.