Journal article
New perspectives on the synoptic development of the severe October 1992 Nome storm
MDS Mesquita, DE Atkinson, I Simmonds, K Keay, J Gottschatck
Geophysical Research Letters | Published : 2009
DOI: 10.1029/2009GL038824
Open access
Abstract
Understanding the characteristics of storms that impact the Alaska region is of importance to emergency planning. The 5-7 October 1992 storm was a severe event which cost Nome, a town in Alaska, $6 million dollars. We will explore its characteristics with the aid of two established cyclone tracking schemes: the NOAA CPC current operational algorithm and the University of Melbourne algorithm. Manual tracking was performed as a control. The essential features are captured by both algorithms, but they differ in the genesis and lysis location. The NOAA algorithm broke the storm into two separate events. Synoptic development of the storm was influenced by a blocking high that affected how the..
View full abstractGrants
Awarded by NOAA
Funding Acknowledgements
We are grateful for NCAR for providing their data sets in the public domain. This work was made possible by grants from the Center for Global Change and Arctic System Research and NOAA grant NA06OAR4600179 "Social Vulnerability to Climate Change in the Alaskan Coastal Zone.'' We appreciate comments made on a first draft by two anonymous reviewers, which strengthened the paper. We would also like to thank Ted Fathauer, NOAA's National Weather Service, for useful discussions.