Abstract
Acoustic sounders have now been used extensively in a series of noctural drainage flow experiments carried out by the U.S. Department of Energy's Atmospheric Studies in Complex Terrain (ASCOT) program. Doppler acoustic sounders, located in three different valleys during the sequence of experiments, reveal drainage-wind profiles that depend strongly on the ambient meteorological conditions and the elevation of each observing site relative to surrounding terrain. In elevated sites that drain easily, Doppler-sounder derived wind profiles show a simply-structured flow; in lower lying areas, subject to topographic constriction and cold-air pooling, and where Archimedean forces are comparable to those due to synoptic and mesoscale pressure gradients, the wind profiles show considerable vertical and temporal variation. In particular, in the Geysers area of northern California, the seabreeze and the depth of the Pacific Coast marine inversion affect not only the initiation of drainage winds but also their subsequent evolution.
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Neff, W.D., King, C.W. Observations of complex-terrain flows using acoustic sounders: Experiments, topography, and winds. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 40, 363–392 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00116103
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00116103