METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS DURING THE DEPLOYMENTS Sample Clauses

METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS DURING THE DEPLOYMENTS. Classification Systems for Meteorological Events One objective of this project was to differentiate between various meteorological conditions that occurred during the study period and to associate these with hydrodynamic, bottom boundary layer and sedimentary responses. It is useful, therefore, to establish a classification system by which to characterize atmospheric conditions, specifically those related to winter extratropical storms and fair weather in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Numerous classification schemes have been proposed to categorize atmospheric conditions in a variety of environments—however, since meteorological processes are inherently complicated, these are of necessity based on criteria that suit a particular purpose. Depending on the requirements of a specific study, for example, a classification scheme may be based on local atmospheric measurements, on synoptic or global-scale atmospheric circulation, or on the effect of atmospheric forcing on some aspect of the physical or human environment. The system employed in this project was ultimately designed to differentiate between: (1) fair weather and storm conditions; (2) different phases of extratropical storms; (3) extratropical storms of different intensities and synoptic types. As such, it draws upon several classification systems suggested in the literature, as well as criteria specific to the research, and employs both hourly wind velocity data and daily national weather maps. Storm magnitude scales, such as the Xxxxxx-Xxxxxxx scale for hurricanes and the Fujita scale for tornadoes, are a fairly simple and familiar type of meteorological classification system based largely on wind speed and barometric pressure. Although magnitude scales for extratropical storms are somewhat less familiar, several have been proposed. One example is the Northeast storm scale of Xxxxxx (1986), who ranked storms in the Atlantic qualitatively, on the basis of their effect (damage potential) on coastal beaches. More recently, Xxxxx and Xxxxx (1992a, 1992b) suggested a scale for Atlantic coast Northeast storms (Nor’easters) that was also based on coastal damage potential, but included, in addition, a quantitative index of storm power calculated using the square of the significant wave height times the duration of the storm. Xxx (1993) proposed a classification system for extratropical cyclones in the Gulf of Mexico. This scale is based on the minimum central pressure of a Gulf cyclone and the predicted max...