A COMPARISON OF WIND PROFILER AND SOUNDING OBSERVATIONS DURING A FRONTAL EVENT

The testing and evaluation of new observing systems (VHF-45 MHz, UHF-9 61MHz wind profilers) as well as their performance in a network was li sted among the goals of the FRONTS87 European field experiment. Using the FRONTS87 dataset for the 12-13 January 1988 cold front, the two ho rizontal wind components from the INSU-METEO VHF and UHF wind profiler s are quantitatively compared with those derived from collocated speci al upper-air soundings. Comparison between the sounding and the profil ers data shows good agreement with rms differences of 4-4.5 ms(-1) for the VHF and 2.2 ms(-1) for the UHF wind profiler. The combined use of the two profilers with their high time resolution data (one vertical profile every 15 min) along with the high altitude resolution data of the UHF profiler (150 m) allowed us to obtain, in precipitation as wel l as in clear sky areas, a detailed image of both the low-level and up per level jet associated with the cold front observed over Brittany Fr ance, 12-13 January 1988. The case-study analysis illustrates the pote ntial application of the French UHF and VHF wind profiling systems for describing synoptic and mesoscale wind regimes.