A Climatology of Atmospheric Patterns Associated with Red River Valley Blizzards
Stretching along the border of North Dakota and Minnesota, The Red River Valley (RRV) of the North has the highest frequency of reported blizzards within the contiguous United States. Despite the numerous impacts these events have, few systematic studies exist that discuss the meteorological propert...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:37aeaceba26849389bb03efce2638804 2023-05-15T15:09:03+02:00 A Climatology of Atmospheric Patterns Associated with Red River Valley Blizzards Aaron Kennedy Alexander Trellinger Thomas Grafenauer Gregory Gust 2019-05-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.3390/cli7050066 https://doaj.org/article/37aeaceba26849389bb03efce2638804 EN eng MDPI AG https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/7/5/66 https://doaj.org/toc/2225-1154 2225-1154 doi:10.3390/cli7050066 https://doaj.org/article/37aeaceba26849389bb03efce2638804 Climate, Vol 7, Iss 5, p 66 (2019) Blizzards blowing snow climatology self-organizing maps synoptic typing Science Q article 2019 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.3390/cli7050066 2022-12-31T01:48:09Z Stretching along the border of North Dakota and Minnesota, The Red River Valley (RRV) of the North has the highest frequency of reported blizzards within the contiguous United States. Despite the numerous impacts these events have, few systematic studies exist that discuss the meteorological properties of blizzards. As a result, forecasting these events and lesser blowing snow events is an ongoing challenge. This study presents a climatology of atmospheric patterns associated with RRV blizzards for the winter seasons of 1979−1980 and 2017−2018. Patterns were identified using subjective and objective techniques using meteorological fields from the North American Regional Re-analysis (NARR). The RRV experiences, on average, 2.6 events per year. Blizzard frequency is bimodal, with peaks occurring in December and March. The events can largely be typed into four meteorological categories dependent on the forcing that drives the blizzard: Alberta Clippers, Arctic Fronts, Colorado Lows, and Hybrids. The objective classification of these blizzards using a competitive neural network known as the Self-Organizing Map (SOM) demonstrates that gross segregation of the events can be achieved with a small (eight-class) map. This implies that objective analysis techniques can be used to identify these events in weather and climate model output that may aid future forecasting and risk assessment projects. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Climate 7 5 66 |
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Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Blizzards blowing snow climatology self-organizing maps synoptic typing Science Q |
spellingShingle |
Blizzards blowing snow climatology self-organizing maps synoptic typing Science Q Aaron Kennedy Alexander Trellinger Thomas Grafenauer Gregory Gust A Climatology of Atmospheric Patterns Associated with Red River Valley Blizzards |
topic_facet |
Blizzards blowing snow climatology self-organizing maps synoptic typing Science Q |
description |
Stretching along the border of North Dakota and Minnesota, The Red River Valley (RRV) of the North has the highest frequency of reported blizzards within the contiguous United States. Despite the numerous impacts these events have, few systematic studies exist that discuss the meteorological properties of blizzards. As a result, forecasting these events and lesser blowing snow events is an ongoing challenge. This study presents a climatology of atmospheric patterns associated with RRV blizzards for the winter seasons of 1979−1980 and 2017−2018. Patterns were identified using subjective and objective techniques using meteorological fields from the North American Regional Re-analysis (NARR). The RRV experiences, on average, 2.6 events per year. Blizzard frequency is bimodal, with peaks occurring in December and March. The events can largely be typed into four meteorological categories dependent on the forcing that drives the blizzard: Alberta Clippers, Arctic Fronts, Colorado Lows, and Hybrids. The objective classification of these blizzards using a competitive neural network known as the Self-Organizing Map (SOM) demonstrates that gross segregation of the events can be achieved with a small (eight-class) map. This implies that objective analysis techniques can be used to identify these events in weather and climate model output that may aid future forecasting and risk assessment projects. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Aaron Kennedy Alexander Trellinger Thomas Grafenauer Gregory Gust |
author_facet |
Aaron Kennedy Alexander Trellinger Thomas Grafenauer Gregory Gust |
author_sort |
Aaron Kennedy |
title |
A Climatology of Atmospheric Patterns Associated with Red River Valley Blizzards |
title_short |
A Climatology of Atmospheric Patterns Associated with Red River Valley Blizzards |
title_full |
A Climatology of Atmospheric Patterns Associated with Red River Valley Blizzards |
title_fullStr |
A Climatology of Atmospheric Patterns Associated with Red River Valley Blizzards |
title_full_unstemmed |
A Climatology of Atmospheric Patterns Associated with Red River Valley Blizzards |
title_sort |
climatology of atmospheric patterns associated with red river valley blizzards |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3390/cli7050066 https://doaj.org/article/37aeaceba26849389bb03efce2638804 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_source |
Climate, Vol 7, Iss 5, p 66 (2019) |
op_relation |
https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/7/5/66 https://doaj.org/toc/2225-1154 2225-1154 doi:10.3390/cli7050066 https://doaj.org/article/37aeaceba26849389bb03efce2638804 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/cli7050066 |
container_title |
Climate |
container_volume |
7 |
container_issue |
5 |
container_start_page |
66 |
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1766340287385305088 |