Forecasting Downdraft Wind Speeds Associated with Airmass Thunderstorms for Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, Using the Wsr-88d

During the period Jun-Aug 96, four Air Force installations suffered over $4.8 million in damage from convective winds. During the same summer, Air Force Space Command units issued nearly 65% of their weather warnings for convective winds, making the forecasting of convective winds the most frequent challenge to forecasters. This thesis seeks to assist Air Force forecasters at Peterson Air Force Base (PAFB), Colorado, in forecasting airmass thunderstorm downdraft wind speeds using the Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D). To accomplish this purpose, several existing potential downdraft wind speed prediction techniques were evaluated against the observed wind speeds of nineteen airmass thunderstorms.