Intense windstorms in the northeastern United States

Letson, Frederick W.; Barthelmie, Rebecca J.; Hodges, Kevin I.; Pryor, Sara C.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2001-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2001-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2001-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 7

Research article

|

02 Jul 2021

Research article |

| 02 Jul 2021

Intense windstorms in the northeastern United States

Frederick W. Letson, Rebecca J. Barthelmie, Kevin I. Hodges, and Sara C. Pryor

Data sets

Radar Data NCDC https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/radar-data

Storm Events Database NCEI https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/stormevents/

First Ice, Last Ice, and Ice Duration NOAA https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/data/ice/atlas/ice_duration/duration.html

Automated Surface Observation System (ASOS) NCEI https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/land-based-station-data/land-based-datasets/automated-surface-observing-system-asos

Short summary

Windstorms during the last 40 years in the US Northeast are identified and characterized using the spatial extent of extreme wind speeds at 100 m height from the ERA5 reanalysis. During all of the top 10 windstorms, wind speeds exceeding the local 99.9th percentile cover at least one-third of the land area in this high-population-density region. These 10 storms followed frequently observed cyclone tracks but have intensities 5–10 times the mean values for cyclones affecting this region.