Cross-barrier flow

Cross-barrier flow was one of the parameters I investigated in the individual soundings from each event. As I mentioned here, this parameter exhibited a negative correlation to the wind gust magnitude which goes against intuition. This correlation was largest around 18 to 24 hours prior to the event, and then weakened toward the time of the event at which point it became slightly positive.

From this information, I chose to investigate the change in the cross-barrier flow over time in relation to the wind events. As suggested by the initial statistics, increasing cross-barrier flow correlates with stronger wind events. This at least makes more sense intuitively. The result is a +0.29 correlation. 

Below I have graphed the wind reports against the d(Cross-barrier flow)/dt parameter. I have included this parameter in the empirical function, which made very slight improvements on the correlation and error. It currently has a correlation of +0.69 with an average error of 4.8kt or 6.5%. The contribution from each component of the function is also plotted. 

The third graph is the current best fit plot which adjusts for the same standard deviation as the wind event database, and thus it is perfectly averaged around the y=x line on the plot of obs versus empirical values. There are three events for which the empirical value has an error greater than 10kt and eight events with a percent error greater than 10%.