Comparing gust factors

Since 1998, Texas Tech University has been collecting high-resolution wind-speed data from landfalling tropical cyclones. During the spring of 2002, additional boundary-layer wind-speed data were gathered from extratropical systems in western Texas using the same set of instruments. Gust factors from tropical cyclone and extratropical storm winds were stratified separately into four upstream roughness regimes for comparison. The mean tropical cyclone gust factor determined within any specific roughness regime was always higher than its extratropical counterpart. There were also differences in the wind-speed histograms for the two datasets.