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On 29 November 1991 a series of collisions involving 164 vehicles occurred on Interstate 5 in the San Joaquin Valley in California in a dust storm that reduced the visibility to near zero. The accompanying high surface winds are hypothesized to result from intense upper-tropospheric downward motion that led to the formation of a strong upper front and tropopause fold and that transported high momentum air downward to midlevels where boundary layer processes could then mix it to the surface. The objectives of the research presented in this paper are to document the event, to provide support for the hypothesis that both upper-level and boundary layer processes were important, and to determine the structure of the mesoscale circulations in this case for future use in evaluating the navy's mesoscale data assimilation system.The strong upper-level descent present in this case is consistent with what one would expect for jet streak and frontal circulations in combination with quasigeostrophic processes. During the period examined, upper-level data and analyses portray a strong upper-tropospheric jet streak with maximum winds initially in excess of 85 m s -1 (-170 kt) that weakened as it propagated southward around the base of a long-wave trough. The jet streak was accompanied by a strong upper front and tropopause fold, both of which imply intense downward motion. The vertical motion field near the time of the accidents had two maxima-one that was associated with a combination of quasigeostrophic forcing and terrain-induced descent in the lee of the Sierra and one that was associated with the descending branch of the secondary circulation in the jet streak exit region and the cold advection by both the geostrophic wind and the ageostrophic wind in the upper front. The 700-hPa wind speed maximum over and west of the San Joaquin Valley overlapped with the latter maximum, supporting the hypothesized role of downward momentum transport. Given the significant 700-hPa wind speeds over the San Joaquin Valley during daytime hours on the day of the collisions, boundary layer mixing associated with solar heating of the earth's surface was then able to generate high surface winds. Once the high surface winds began, a dust storm was inevitable, since winter rains had not yet started and soil conditions were drier than usual in this sixth consecutive drought year. Surface observations from a variety of sources depict blowing dust and high surface winds at numerous locations in the San Joaquin Valley, the Mojave and other desert sites, and in the Los Angeles Basin and other south coast sites. High surface winds and low visibilities began in the late morning at desert and valley sites and lasted until just after sunset, consistent with the hypothesized heating-induced mixing. The 0000 UTC soundings in California portrayed an adiabatic layer from the surface to at least 750 hPa, also supporting the existence of mixing. On the other hand, the high winds in the Los Angeles Basin began near sunset in the wake of a propagating me...

The impacts of special Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) rapid-scan (RS) wind observations on numerical model 24-120-h track forecasts of Hurricane Katrina are examined in a series of data assimilation and forecast experiments. The RS wind vectors are derived from geostationary satellites by tracking cloud motions through successive 5-min images. In these experiments, RS wind observations are added over the area 158-608N, 608-1108W, and they supplement the observations used in operational forecasts. The inclusion of RS wind observations reduces errors in numerical forecasts of the Katrina landfall position at 1200 UTC 29 August 2005 by an average of 12% compared to control cases that include ''targeted'' dropsonde observations in the Katrina environment. The largest average improvements are made to the 84-to 120-h Katrina track forecasts, rather than to the short-range track forecasts. These results suggest that RS wind observations can potentially be used in future cases to improve track forecasts of tropical cyclones.

Enhanced atmospheric motion vectors (AMVs) produced from the geostationary Multifunctional Transport Satellite (MTSAT) are assimilated into the U.S. Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS) to evaluate the impact of these observations on tropical cyclone track forecasts during the simultaneous western North Pacific Ocean Observing System Research and Predictability Experiment (THORPEX) Pacific Asian Regional Campaign (TPARC) and the Tropical Cyclone Structure-2008 (TCS-08) field experiments. Four-dimensional data assimilation is employed to take advantage of experimental high-resolution (space and time) AMVs produced for the field campaigns by the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies. Two enhanced AMV datasets are considered: 1) extended periods produced at hourly intervals over a large western North Pacific domain using routinely available MTSAT imagery and 2) limited periods over a smaller storm-centered domain produced using special MTSAT rapid-scan imagery. Most of the locally impacted forecast cases involve Typhoons Sinlaku and Hagupit, although other storms are also examined. On average, the continuous assimilation of the hourly AMVs reduces the NOGAPS tropical cyclone track forecast errors-in particular, for forecasts longer than 72 h. It is shown that the AMVs can improve the environmental flow analyses that may be influencing the tropical cyclone tracks. Adding rapid-scan AMV observations further reduces the NOGAPS forecast errors. In addition to their benefit in traditional data assimilation, the enhanced AMVs show promise as a potential resource for advanced objective data-targeting methods.