Stochastic Modelling of the Areal Extent of Weather Conditions

Irving I. Gringorten

Jan 1973 · Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories, Air Force Systems Command, United States Air Force

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If the probability of a 24-hour rainfall, exceeding 1/2 inch, is 10 percent over a small area like a barn, how much greater is the probability of such an amount falling somewhere within a 1000-sq mile region. The generalization of this problem is to relate the probability of a meteorological event at a single location to the problem of its occurrence within a specified area or along a specific line of travel. A Monte Carlo technique was applied to a variable that is normally distributed everywhere in a horizontal space. The procedure produced synoptic maps in which the correlation between the elements at two stations decreases determinably with increasing distance between the stations. On each synoptic map the minimum in various-sized areas or along line segments of various lengths was found. From a large number (like 10,000) of such synoptic fields it was possible to plot estimates of the probability distributions of areal minima (or maxima) or minima (or maxima) along lines of travel. This kind of modelling was tested and found effective on temperatures along flight-path segments of several hundred to several thousand miles in length at 100 mb and on New England 24-hour rainfall. (Author).