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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ftunivndakota:oai:commons.und.edu:as-fac-1005 2023-05-15T15:07:00+02:00 A Climatology of Atmospheric Patterns Associated with Red River Valley Blizzards Kennedy, Aaron Trellinger, Alexander Grafenauer, Thomas Gust, Gregory 2019-05-06T07:00:00Z application/pdf https://commons.und.edu/as-fac/6 https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=as-fac unknown UND Scholarly Commons https://commons.und.edu/as-fac/6 https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=as-fac http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY Atmospheric Sciences Faculty Publications Blizzards blowing snow climatology self-organizing maps synoptic typing text 2019 ftunivndakota 2022-09-14T06:15:25Z 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. Text Arctic UND Scholarly Commons (University of North Dakota) Arctic |
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Blizzards blowing snow climatology self-organizing maps synoptic typing |
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Blizzards blowing snow climatology self-organizing maps synoptic typing Kennedy, Aaron Trellinger, Alexander Grafenauer, Thomas Gust, Gregory A Climatology of Atmospheric Patterns Associated with Red River Valley Blizzards |
topic_facet |
Blizzards blowing snow climatology self-organizing maps synoptic typing |
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 |
Text |
author |
Kennedy, Aaron Trellinger, Alexander Grafenauer, Thomas Gust, Gregory |
author_facet |
Kennedy, Aaron Trellinger, Alexander Grafenauer, Thomas Gust, Gregory |
author_sort |
Kennedy, Aaron |
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 |
UND Scholarly Commons |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://commons.und.edu/as-fac/6 https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=as-fac |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_source |
Atmospheric Sciences Faculty Publications |
op_relation |
https://commons.und.edu/as-fac/6 https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=as-fac |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
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CC-BY |
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1766338580543700992 |