Observations and simulations of a wind farm modifying a thunderstorm outflow boundary

Tomaszewski, Jessica M.; Lundquist, Julie K.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-6-1-2021

Articles | Volume 6, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-6-1-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-6-1-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 6, issue 1

Research article

|

04 Jan 2021

Research article |

| 04 Jan 2021

Observations and simulations of a wind farm modifying a thunderstorm outflow boundary

Jessica M. Tomaszewski and Julie K. Lundquist

Data sets

WRF-WFP-outflow v1.1 Jessica M. Tomaszewski https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3974719

The ERA-Interim reanalysis: configuration and performance of the data assimilation system (https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds627.0/) D. P. Dee, S. M. Uppala, A. J. Simmons, et al. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.828

XTurb-PSU: A Wind Turbine Design and Analysis Tool S. Schmitz https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.22492.18567

Model code and software

A Description of the Advanced Research WRF Version 3 (http://www2.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/download/get_source.html and https://doi.org/10.5065/D6MK6B4K) W. C. Skamarock, J. B. Klemp, J. Dudhia, D. O. Gill, D. M. Barker, M. G. Duda, X.-Y. Huang, W. Wang, and J. G. Powers https://doi.org/10.5065/D68S4MVH

Short summary

We use a mesoscale numerical weather prediction model to conduct a case study of a thunderstorm outflow passing over and interacting with a wind farm. These simulations and observations from a nearby radar and surface station confirm that interactions with the wind farm cause the outflow to reduce its speed by over 20 km h⁻¹, with brief but significant impacts on the local meteorology, including temperature, moisture, and winds. Precipitation accumulation across the region was unaffected.