To test the idea that observed oscillations in severe downslope winds are due to Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, the eigenvalues for the Taylor-Goldstein equation are found for a family of shear flows arising from local hydraulic theory. These two theories, local hydraulic theory and linear Kelvin-Helmholtz theory, provide a reasonable prediction of the period and speed of movement of the wind oscillations but underestimate their growth. The rule-of-thumb critical Richardson number of 0.25 agrees better than the linear theory value found here, 0.1, possibly indicating a nonlinear subcritical instability. -Author
CITATION STYLE
Smith, R. B. (1991). Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in severe downslope wind flow. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 48(10), 1319–1324. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1991)048<1319:KHIISD>2.0.CO;2
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