Development of Algorithm for Detecting Strong Wind Location due to Gust Using Weather Radar Information

Since gusts such as tornados, gust fronts, and downbursts are localized and short time phenomena, they cannot always be detected with existing anemometers along railways used for train operation. Therefore, to ensure keep the safety of train operations against these gusts, an algorithm was developed for extracting the strong wind areas on the ground. This algorithm is based consists of two parts. The first is to detect gust indices in upper air layers from echo and Doppler wind velocity observed with existing weather radar, and the second is to estimate the surface wind velocity of ground surface from upper air gust indices using calculation results of previous gust events using a meteorological model.