Semestral Journal of Centro Argentino de Meteorólogos, which is published  since 1970 and serves on the Core of Argentine Scientific Journals since 2005. Meteorologica publishes original papers in the field of atmospheric sciences and oceanography.

Registration number of intellectual property: 2023-95212445-APN-DNDA#MJ

ISSN 1850-468X

PRELIMINARY DESCRIPTION OF THE SPEED AND DIRECTION OF THE MONTHLY MEAN WIND IN TRELEW

Lucila Mercedes Cúneo, Silvia Bibiana Cerne, María Paula Llano

Dpto. de Cs. de la Atmósfera y los Océanos, FCEyN, UBA. Piso 2, Pabellón 2, Cdad. Universitaria,
Consejo Nac. de Inv. Científicas y Técnicas, Av. Rivadavia 1917, C1033AAJ, CABA, Argentina.
Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmosfera CIMA – (CONICET-UBA)
Instituto Franco-Argentino sobre Estudios de Clima y sus Impactos UMIIFAECI 3351-CNRS-CONICET-UBA

Manuscript received on 27th November 2017, in final form on 23rd March 2018

ABSTRACT

In this paper we analyze and discuss the characteristics of the wind datasets made at standard 10 m height in the meteorological station of Trelew Aero in Chubut, Argentina between 1997 and 2014. Our study was focused on analyzing and documenting the quality of the data, we described the daily, seasonal and annual variability of the observational data of speed and wind direction. We also examined the behavior of extreme values (intense velocities and calms).

The quality control of the data indicated that the instrument was changed twice in the station and in 2009 showed malfunctioning and a homogeneity study of different statistical properties indicated three periods of data sets. For each of them, we calculated the hourly, daily, monthly and annual mean values. We evaluated the distributions of velocity frequencies and their corresponding adjustment to the Weibull function, the calms events and finally, the frequency distributions of direction through a wind rose.

As a result, we found a decrease in the mean annual wind speed between periods and a reduction of extreme winds, both higher and lower values. Besides, although westerly winds are the most frequent throughout the year, they do not represent the most intense wind speed. Finally, we found that the most intense winds are rotating to north in the last period.