Observation of Downburst Associated with Intense Thunderstorms Encountered by an Aircraft at Hong Kong International Airport

Abstract

In situ observational data from aircraft within microbursts is rather rare in Hong Kong, and such a case is documented in this paper by comparison with the large amount of meteorological data in the vicinity of Hong Kong International Airport, in particular, from the weather radars. Three-dimensional wind field retrieval has been conducted from the radars, and the wind data so obtained are compared with the vertical velocity and eddy dissipation rate measured onboard the aircraft during the encountering of two microbursts. The two datasets are found to be generally consistent with each other. The dataset and the meteorological phenomenon studied in this paper are unique, and it is hoped that such a documented case could be useful for reference for aviation weather forecasting and alerting elsewhere in the world and the design of new aircraft.