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Windshear/ microburst

  • 19-07-2008 07:26AM
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 794 ✭✭✭


    hi all.
    Just posting in hope that those in the know can educate me in relation to windshear and mircrobursts. Im interested in knowing what the conditions surrounding and inside the windshear are like before and after it happens. I have a basic understanding of the structure, winds and distances involved but if anyone has studied them in depth, please do tell all. Particularly interested in downdrafts and updrafts associated with them and the different types of windshear or microburts that there are.

    Thanks for your help :)


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,033 ✭✭✭Snowbie


    Both are directly linked to wind speed and direction and more of a hazard to aviation.
    Wind shear is the sudden directional change of wind. While microbursts are severe downdrafts from severe thunderstorms/heavy showers that radiate from a central point.

    When a microburst hits the ground, it radiates out from a central point which bounce and rolls back up into the air. There are two distinct types of microbursts Wet/Dry. A wet microburst drags down hail/rain in the form of a shadow and hits the ground with force that it spreads out in all directions and curls back into the air, but you can also have a dry microburst. This happens when the precip falls through a dry layer and evaporates(virga) and you feel the dry powerful gust of wind but with no rain.All you would witness is raised dust curling back into the air.

    Wind shear is an important element for severe thunderstorms to occur. Wind speed shear(updraft/rotational) and wind directional shear tilting the storm and separating both the updraft and the downdraft. If a downdraft falls back on the updraft it kills the storm.
    Now on the more violent storms, the downdrafts are severest which will lead to Microbursts.

    The ground wind shear i have experience here would be more likely from a storm depression moving close or in over the area where the motion of the wind speed and direction is more pronounced in wind squalls.


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