PRELIMINARY STUDY OF HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL WIND PROFILE OF QUASI-LINEAR CONVECTIVE UTILIZING WEATHER RADAR OVER WESTERN JAVA REGION, INDONESIA

Abstract

One of the weather phenomena that potentially cause extreme weather conditions is the linear-shaped mesoscale convective systems, including squall lines. The phenomenon that can be categorized as a squall line is a convective cloud pair with the linear pattern of more than 100 km length and 6 hours lifetime. The new theory explained that the cloud system with the same morphology as squall line without longevity threshold. Such a cloud system is so-called Quasi-Linear Convective System (QLCS), which strongly influenced by the ambient dynamic processes, include horizontal and vertical wind profiles. This research is intended as a preliminary study for horizontal and vertical wind profiles of QLCS developed over the Western Java region utilizing Doppler weather radar. The following parameters were analyzed in this research, include direction pattern and spatial-temporal significance of wind speed, divergence profile, vertical wind shear (VWS) direction, and intensity profiles, and vertical velocity profile. The subjective and objective analysis was applied to explain the characteristics and effects of those parameters to the orientation of propagation, relative direction, and speed of the cloud system’s movement, and the lifetime of the system. Analysis results showed that the movement of the system was affected by wind direction and velocity patterns. The divergence profile combined with the vertical velocity profile represents the inflow which can supply water vapor for QLCS convective cloud cluster. Vertical wind shear that effect QLCS system is only its direction relative to the QLCS propagation, while the intensity didn’t have a significant effect.