The Short Life of Upvalley Wind in a High‐Altitude Valley in the Colorado Rocky Mountains

Adler, Bianca; Caicedo, Vanessa; Butterworth, Brian J.; Bianco, Laura; Cox, Christopher J.; de Boer, Gijs; Gutman, Ethan; Intrieri, Janet M.; Meyers, Tilden; Sedlar, Joseph; Turner, David D.; Wilczak, James

doi:10.1029/2025JD043455

i

The Short Life of Upvalley Wind in a High‐Altitude Valley in the Colorado Rocky Mountains

2025
By Adler, Bianca ; Caicedo, Vanessa ; Butterworth, Brian J. ; ...

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Journal Title:

Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
Personal Author:

Adler, Bianca ; Caicedo, Vanessa ; Butterworth, Brian J. ; Bianco, Laura ; Cox, Christopher J. ; de Boer, Gijs ; Gutman, Ethan ; Intrieri, Janet M. ; Meyers, Tilden ; Sedlar, Joseph ; Turner, David D. ; Wilczak, James
NOAA Program & Office:

OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; ARL (Air Resources Laboratory) ; CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences) ; GML (Global Monitoring Laboratory) ; GSL (Global Systems Laboratory) ; PSL (Physical Sciences Laboratory)
Description:

Thermally driven upvalley (UV) wind in the upper East River Valley in the Colorado Rocky Mountains often unexpectedly stops in midmorning and reverses back to downvalley (DV) wind. We use a comprehensive observational data set for a nearly two‐year long period to analyze the wind system and boundary layer evolution in this high‐altitude valley and determine the reason for this early wind reversal. Days with short UV wind predominantly occur during the warm season when the valley floor is free of snow and the convective boundary layer (CBL) grows well above the height of the surrounding ridges. UV wind persists throughout the day only on a few days during the warm season. We link differences in valley wind evolution to wind direction at upper levels at and above ridge height and propose forced channeling mechanisms to describe coupling between valley and upper‐level wind when the CBL grows above ridge height. The frequency distribution of upper‐level wind direction is such that channeling in the DV direction is favored, which explains the predominance of days with short UV wind. The deep CBL is supported by the presence of a deep weakly stably stratified residual layer with high aerosol content, which is regularly present over the mountain range during the warm season. On days when the CBL does not grow above ridge height, for example, when the valley floor is covered by snow, thermally driven UV wind is able to persist throughout the day independent of upper‐level wind direction.
Source:

Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 130(11)
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JD043455
ISSN:

2169-897X ; 2169-8996
Format:

PDF
Publisher:

American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Document Type:

Journal Article
License:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Rights Information:

CC BY
Compliance:

Submitted
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha-512:6aebde560b9676d6cc130f472efd7d2012984f5cad615c5465d58f9dc6b2e3132bb149ee14f2d6606a3c474efc28de19cf3e8c889ef3f7a39843888c667ac287
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https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/70826/noaa_70826_DS1.pdf
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[PDF - 8.50 MB ]

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