Ticker for June 5, 2000

                
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June 5, 2000       June 5, 2000       June 5, 2000       June 5, 2000


Summer Winds Typically Prime for Transporting Texas Air

Sunday's article in The Oklahoman regarding Oklahoma's imported ozone
problems prompted us at the Ticker to show pertinent "wind roses"
compiled from six summers' worth of Oklahoma Mesonet data.

Wind roses are tools that communicate information about the
distribution of wind direction over a period of time.  The rose is
composed of sixteen "petals", each associated with a compass point
(such as N or ESE or SW, etc.).  The length of each petal is
proportional to the frequency that the wind blows from that direction.
For instance, if the southward-pointing petal is the longest, it
indicates that the wind most often blows from that direction.

Because wind roses are a collection of many data points taken at many
different times, they aren't appropriate for use in defining
trajectories of airborne parcels.  However, the six-plus years of
archived Oklahoma Mesonet data might be used to define surface
trajectories.

Here are wind roses for three summer months (near-surface ozone
is typically a warm season problem) for three locations between Oklahoma
City and the Red River.  All three show a dominant southerly wind regime,
in that winds blow from the SSW, S, or SSE more than any other three
directions combined. In several cases, winds blow from one of these
three directions more than 50% of the time.

The City of Tulsa has been pursuing answers to questions about ozone
transport and production for several years now.  In fact, researchers
at the University of Tulsa use Mesonet data as part of a comprehensive
ozone survey of the Tulsa metropolitan area.

June 1994-1999 windroses:
Spencer  

Norman   

Ardmore  


July 1994-1999 windroses:
Spencer  

Norman   

Ardmore  


August 1994-1999 windroses:
Spencer  

Norman   

Ardmore