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Wind shear refers to the variation of wind velocity over either horizontal or vertical distances. Airplane pilots generally regard significant wind shear to be a horizontal change in airspeed of 30 knots (15 m/s) for light aircraft, and near 45 knots (23 m/s) for airliners at flight altitude. [3]
In common usage, wind gradient, more specifically wind speed gradient [1] or wind velocity gradient, [2] or alternatively shear wind, [3] is the vertical component of the gradient of the mean horizontal wind speed in the lower atmosphere. [4] It is the rate of increase of wind strength with unit increase in height above ground level.
The Bulk Richardson Number (BRN) is a dimensionless number relating vertical stability and vertical wind shear (generally, stability divided by shear). It represents the ratio of thermally-produced turbulence and turbulence generated by vertical shear. Practically, its value determines whether convection is free or forced.
Understanding how wind shear influences weather patterns is somewhat complex as there are multiple types of wind shear and because it can be a factor.
Vertical wind shear above the jet stream (i.e., in the stratosphere) is sharper when it is moving upwards, because wind speed decreases with height in the stratosphere. This is the reason CAT can be generated above the tropopause, despite the stratosphere otherwise being a region which is vertically stable.
Wind shear can be broken down into vertical and horizontal components, with horizontal wind shear seen across weather fronts and near the coast, [62] and vertical shear typically near the surface, [63] though also at higher levels in the atmosphere near upper level jets and frontal zones aloft. [64]
When an outflow boundary forms due to a shallow layer of rain-cooled air spreading out near ground level from the parent thunderstorm, both speed and directional wind shear can result at the leading edge of the three-dimensional boundary. The stronger the outflow boundary is, the stronger the resultant vertical wind shear will become. [17]
Organized thunderstorms and thunderstorm clusters/lines can have longer life cycles as they form in environments of sufficient moisture, significant vertical wind shear (normally greater than 25 knots (13 m/s) in the lowest 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) of the troposphere) [5]), which aids the development of stronger updrafts as well as various forms ...