Enhanced shear and veer in the Taiwan Strait during typhoon passage

During typhoon passage extreme wind conditions pose a challenge to the structural integrity of wind turbines. Particularly, wind shear and wind veer can influence wind turbine loads. This study investigates how Taiwan’s central mountain range affects wind shear and wind veer in the Taiwan Strait during three westward-moving typhoon cases. The typhoons are simulated with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. We find that wind speed, shear, and veer vary over different regions in the Taiwan Strait. In large areas, the simulated wind shear is larger than modeled over the open ocean. In particular, mountain blockage leads to a spatially confined area of several 1000 km² downstream of Taiwan, that exhibits over several hours strongly modified shear and veer in all three analyzed cases. Shear exponents up to 0.75 and veer between 0.2 and 0.6° m⁻¹ suggest that turbine loads are impacted by the vertical change in the wind field in this area. The shear exponent and wind veer vary strongly with height in the downstream area of Taiwan’s central mountain range. The location of the area with large wind shear and wind veer differs between the three simulated typhoon cases and primarily depends on the latitude of the typhoon track relative to the central mountain range.