Developing a winter severity index: A critical review

Walker, Charles F.; Hasanzadeh, Sogand; Esmaeili, Behzad; Anderson, Mark R.; Dao, Bac

doi:10.1016/j.coldregions.2019.02.005

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…For inclusion in the winter season database, these weather variables were averaged across each NDOT maintenance district from the available merged ASOS station and GHCN-D site data for each date. Road surface (i.e., RWIS stations) temperature data were not sufficiently quality controlled (Walker and Anderson 2016) and were not available for the entire historical 10-yr period; therefore, they were not included in the development of the NEWINS.…”

Section: Event Classificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the spatial districtlevel averaging, such low visibilities that may be observed at a particular location in time are generally not observed in the overall winter season database. Expanded discussion on these distributions is provided in Walker (2018). Cerruti and Decker (2011) proposed a similar approach in the development of their local winter storm scale (LWSS).…”

Section: Event Classificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In terms of transportation-related considerations, road pavement temperature would be ideal for future inclusion among the parameters; however, Walker and Anderson (2016) had previously demonstrated numerous quality control issues with these data. Transportation agencies would benefit from increasing resources for their instrumentation to be used in products such as the NEWINS.…”

Section: E Newins Limitations and Extensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The literature documenting existing WSIs depicts myriad approaches typically developed for specific state DOTs (Boselly et al 1993;Strong et al 2005;Jensen et al 2013;Blincoe et al 2015;Walsh 2016;Walker et al 2019). In total, 19 states have made available documentation regarding their WSI.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Acknowledgments. Much of the material in this paper is from the dissertation of the lead author (Walker 2018), provided for the convenience of the reader. The study described in this paper was sponsored and supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant DGE-1041000, Nebraska Department of Transportation Project Grant SPR-P1(17) M054, and the Advanced Study Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Developing a Department of Transportation Winter Severity Index

Walker

Steinkruger

Gholizadeh

et al. 2019

Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology

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Adverse weather conditions are responsible for millions of vehicular crashes, thousands of deaths, and billions of dollars per year in economic and congestion costs. Many transportation agencies utilize a performance or mobility metric to assess how well they maintain road access; however, there is only limited consideration of meteorological impacts to the success of their operations. This research develops the Nebraska winter severity index (NEWINS), which is a daily event-driven index derived for the Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT). The NEWINS includes a categorical storm classification framework to capture atmospheric conditions and possible road impacts across diverse spatial regions of Nebraska. A 10-yr (2006–16) winter season database of meteorological variables for Nebraska was obtained from the National Centers for Environmental Information. The NEWINS is based on a weighted linear combination applied to the collected storm classification database to measure severity. The NEWINS results were compared to other meteorological variables, many used in other agencies’ winter severity indices. This comparison verified the NEWINS robustness for the observed events for the 10-yr period. An assessment of the difference between days with observed snow versus days with accumulated snow revealed 39% fewer snow-accumulated days than snow-observed days. Furthermore, the NEWINS results highlighted the greater number of events during the 2009/10 winter season and the lack of events during the 2011/12 winter season. It is expected that the NEWINS could help transportation personnel allocate efficiently resources during adverse weather events. Moreover, the NEWINS framework can be used by other agencies to assess their weather sensitivity.

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Section: Event Classificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Event Classificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: E Newins Limitations and Extensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Developing a Department of Transportation Winter Severity Index

Walker

Steinkruger

Gholizadeh

et al. 2019

Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology

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The spatiotemporal variations of winter severity over North America

Liu

Feng

Huang

2020

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Winter severity affects many aspects of life, including traffic, public health, and the behaviour of animals and plants. The newly developed accumulated winter season severity index (AWSSI) is used in this study to examine the changes of winter severity across North America (NA) during recent decades. The results indicated that the winter severity experienced a notable interdecadal transition in 1965, characterized by increasing AWSSI before 1965, and decreasing AWSSI after 1965. This study also investigates the relationship between the winter severity and the atmospheric circulations over NA. The variations of winter severity are mainly controlled by temperature, while the large‐scale forcings (i.e., ENSO, PDO, and NAO) also play an important role. In particular, PDO is mainly associated with the opposite variation of winter severity between the Southeastern United States and Northwestern NA, while the NAO leads to the opposite variation of winter severity between the Eastern United States and Eastern Canada. Under the influence of ENSO, the variations of winter severity over Southern and Interior Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and the Northern Great Plains are opposed to that over the Southern United States and Northern Canada.

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Severity of winters in the Czech Republic during the 1961–2021 period and related environmental impacts and responses

Brázdil

Zahradníček

Chromá

et al. 2023

Intl Journal of Climatology

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This paper analyses temperature and snow patterns of winters (December–February) averaged for the territory of the Czech Republic during the 1961–2021 period and their broad environmental impacts and responses. Series of mean, maximum, minimum, absolute maximum and absolute minimum temperatures show significant increasing linear trends, while decreasing trends were detected in numbers of frost, ice and extremely cold days, duration of cold waves, snowfall days, sums of heights of new snow, days with snow depths ≥1 cm, mean and maximum snow depths. The winter severity, derived from five temperature and five snow variables and expressed by temperature/snow scores, indicates decreasing severity of winters for 1961–2021, in which temperature severity is more pronounced than that of snow. Decreasing winter severity is in line with decreasing frequency of cyclonic and directional circulation types according to objective classification, while the trend in anticyclonic types was opposite. Types with maritime airflow from the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean contribute to milder and types with continental airflow from the east to colder winters. The coldest winters, 1962/1963 and 1984/1985, and the mildest winters, 2006/2007 and 2019/2020, were analysed in greater detail. Concerning of different analysed environmental impacts, they are influenced not only by severe winter weather, but also by political, socioeconomic and general environmental changes in the country. In line with decreasing winter severity were only statistically significant decreasing trends in proportions of traffic accidents connected with snow and glaze ice on the roads and volumes of damaged wood due to high weights of snow and ice deposit, expressed as salvage felling. Series of other environmental impacts (e.g., fatalities attributed to weather, impacts on the economy and society) reflect rather severity of individual winters and express high interannual variability without any representative trends.

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Developing a winter severity index: A critical review

Cited by 14 publications

References 26 publications

Developing a Department of Transportation Winter Severity Index

Developing a Department of Transportation Winter Severity Index

The spatiotemporal variations of winter severity over North America

Severity of winters in the Czech Republic during the 1961–2021 period and related environmental impacts and responses

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