Operational validation of the Météo France wind profiler in La Ferté-Vidame

Abstract

The wind profiler radar belongs to a new generation of meteorological equipment implemented in the Météo-France operational measurement network. It has been designed to provide continuous observation of the atmosphere from 1.5 to 18 km height. The first instrument of this network was installed in 1995 at La Ferté-Vidame, 100 km west of Paris. The results obtained after two years of systematic comparisons with the outputs of the operational forecasting models have shown both the encouraging capabilities of the profiler and the efforts needed to obtain a fully reliable instrument. Presently, in 99 % of cases, maximum standard deviation of the wind speed is about 3 m/s. In the remaining 1 % of cases, spurious echoes due to grating lobes result in a wrong selection of the peak on the spectrum leading to an important error reaching sometimes 40 m/s. This last point is expected to be solved during the year 1998.

Keywords

• wind profiler radar
• atmosphere
• wind speed
• windprofiler
• meteorologische messsysteme
• windgeschwindigkeit