leo 



ISO 



300 



STO 



CO 



lU 140 



III 



ce 



S »" 



a 



2 ItO 



O 



\ 



\ 



WINDSPEED 



WIND DIRECTION 



■AROMETRIC 

 PilE««URE 



V. 



V./'^' 



H0UII8. EST 



JANUARY 1992 



Figure 29. Wind and surface pressure data from National Park Service meteorological station 

 on Assateague Island during 4-5 January 1992 storm 



Figure 32 is a 1220 UTC, 4 January 1992 surface pressure analysis of the 

 event provided by the NWS Forecast Office at Sterling, VA. The minimum 

 surface pressure indicated on the analysis is 994 mb. The actual pressure may 

 have been slightly lower, between 990 and 992 mb.^ Note that the outermost 

 closed isobar (1,000 mb) is of relatively small radius, alx)ut 200 km. The 

 200-km radius definitely places it in the small, short-lived cyclone category as 

 defined by Nielsen and Dole (1992). By 1800 hr UTC, 4 January, radar indi- 

 cated the system had moved across the Chesapeake Bay into Virginia and 

 begun to dissipate. 



The 4 January event occurred in a geographic area that was populated by 

 offshore meteorological buoys, was within the range of an advanced weather 

 radar (NWS WSR88-D, Sterling, VA), and caused significant damage to a 

 limited coastal area. Nonetheless, the event was not well-documented. The 

 short duration of the 4 January storm, from approximately 1 800 hr UTC, 

 3 January to 1800 hr UTC, 4 January 1992, and small size (about 500 km 

 across), fall within the size and duration range that are poorly depicted in 

 operational analyses based upon the studies described in Chapter 2. This find- 

 ing is consistent with the fact that the storm was not well-forecast. The poor 



^ Personal Communication. (1992). V. Thompson, National Weather Service. 

 Chapter 6 Storm of 4-5 January 1992, Synoptic Analysis 



37 



