HURRICANE ANDREW LANDFALL IN SOUTH FLORIDA .1. STANDARDIZING MEASUREMENTS FOR DOCUMENTATION OF SURFACE WIND FIELDS

Hurricane Andrew's landfall in south Florida left a swath of destructi on, including many failed anemometer recording systems. Extreme destru ction led to exaggerated claims of the range of wind speeds that cause d such damage. The authors accumulated all available data from surface platforms at heights ranging from 2 to 60 m and reconnaissance aircra ft at altitudes near 3 km. Several procedures were used to represent t he various types of wind measurements in a common framework for exposu re, measurement height, and averaging period. This set of procedures a llowed documentation of Andrew's winds in a manner understandable to b oth meteorologists and wind engineers. The procedures are accurate to +/-10% for marine and land observing platforms, and boundary layer mod el adjustments of flight-level winds to the surface compare to within 20% of the nearest surface measurements. Failure to implement the adju stment procedures may lead to errors of 15%-40%. Quality control of th e data is discussed, including treatment of peak wind observations and determination of the radius of maximum winds at the surface.