EAGER: Progressive Derecho Initiation and Propagation in Specific Physical Corridors as Determined by Mesoscale D-PSI Vectors

德雷克是大气层中最具破坏性的现象之一。这些风暴与一组快速移动的、巨大的、不断增长的雷暴有关，这些雷暴可以持续10个小时或更长时间，并远远超过600英里。它们通常伴随着时速超过65英里的阵风，以及破坏性的闪电、洪水、大冰雹，甚至是小龙卷风。它们对农业、交通和城市安全造成不利影响。最近美国中西部的一次德雷克飓风造成了超过110亿美元的财产损失，以及超过每小时140英里的阵风造成的几人死亡。目前，我们并不经常预测最具破坏性的地磁回波的强度、位置和持续时间，也不总是在几个小时前就区分强弱地磁回波。该项目将基于科学理论和计算机可视化在4个维度上创造新的技术，以提高对这种破坏现象的预测。这项新技术将以计算机生成的大气条件预测的形式提供给正在运行的政府和私人天气预报员，这些大气条件最有可能产生德回声。这将潜在地使我们能够比目前更早地更准确地预测德回波，从而拯救生命和减少财产损失。目前，对德回波的操作计算机预测受到缺乏对前驱物理环境的适当合成来消除回波的产生和运动的影响。即将采取的研究方法综合了比以前更多的物理条件，这些条件可能会产生持久和毁灭性的反回声。构成德回波的强雷暴的更大范围的组织是急流和独特的大气锋面系统的结果，而急流和独特的大气锋面系统最有可能在极端热浪期间发生。将被测试的理论代表了一种独特的物理过程的综合，以前不适用于在操作或研究环境中的去回声。此外，这些物理的复杂性需要创新的4维计算机可视化技术，以便业务天气预报员能够了解许多非线性过程，这些过程必须适当地相变才能产生德回声。其目标是大幅提高业务计算流体模型对预报员有利的反回声环境的预测的可靠性，从而为公众延长这些毁灭性风暴的预警提前时间。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Derechos are one of the atmosphere’s most destructive phenomena. These windstorms are associated with a rapidly moving, massive and growing group of thunderstorms that can last for 10 or more hours and travel well over 600 miles. They are typically accompanied by wind gusts of more than 65 mph as well as damaging lightning, flooding rain, large hail, and even small tornados. They adversely impact agriculture, transportation, and urban safety. A recent derecho in the midwestern U.S. resulted in more than 11 billion dollars of property damage and several fatalities from wind gusts greater than 140 mph. Presently, we do not often predict the intensity, location, and duration of the most devastating derechos nor do we consistently differentiate between the strong and weak derechos only hours in advance. This project will create new technology based on scientific theories and computer visualizations in 4 dimensions to improve the prediction of this damaging phenomenon. The new technology will be available to operational government and private weather forecasters in the form of computer-generated predictions of the atmospheric conditions that are most likely to create derechos. This will potentially enable more accurate prediction of derechos farther in advance than we presently can do thus saving lives and reducing property damage.Presently, operational computer predictions of derechos suffer from a lack of proper synthesis of the precursor physical environment to derecho genesis and motion. The research approach to be undertaken synthesizes many more of the physical conditions that are likely to create long lasting and devastating derechos than has been done before. The larger scale organization of the strong thunderstorms that comprise derechos is the result of the jet stream and unique atmospheric frontal systems that are most likely to occur during extreme heat waves. The theory to be tested represents a unique synthesis of physical processes not previously applied to derechos in either the operational or research environments. Also, the complexity of these physics requires innovative 4-dimensional computer visualization techniques so that operational weather forecasters can understand the many nonlinear processes that have to properly phase to produce derechos. The goal is to substantially improve the reliability of the synthesis of operational computational fluid model predictions of a favorable derecho environment for forecasters and thus extend for the public the lead time of warnings of these devastating windstorms.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.