Combination of wind gust models in convective events

Gusts are particularly relevant to wind engineering and it is of interest to develop a forecasting tool for wind energy management for systems such as Uruguay's, which has a wind power participation of 38% (UTE, 2019). In the present work, we assess the performance of two gust parameterizations (Gutiérrez–Fovell and Nakamura et al.) utilizing Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model simulations for predicting gusts at 100 ​m above ground level in the presence of convection. Convective activity is predicted when the vertically accumulated rain water mixing ratio computed by the model exceeds a selected value and is verified in part via satellite imagery (GOES-13). Gust forecast skill is evaluated with wind tower observations. We find a combination of the two parameterizations yields the highest forecast skill.