Abstract
The onset and demise of non-convective high wind events (NCWEs) remains a challenge for the operational forecasting community. In an attempt to gain a better understanding of such events, a period of record climatology of NCWEs for the northern plains region of the United States was constructed using archived METAR and SAO data from 29 first-order weather stations for the cool season (September through March). The data were analyzed using the National Weather Service (NWS) criteria for high-wind watches and warnings: sustained winds of at least 18 m s-1 for at least 1 h or a wind gust of at least 26 m s-1 for any duration. Initial analysis shows that NCWEs are relatively rare and that sites across Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, southern Minnesota, Iowa, and northwest Missouri indicate a preference towards having strong winds from the northwest quadrant for NCWEs. Composite charts for NCWEs were constructed for 6 sites using data from the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) dataset. These composite charts should improve the forecasters' ability to identify large scale synoptic patterns in which NCWEs are more likely to occur.