A method for finding sea breeze days under stable synoptic conditions and its application to the Swedish West Coast

A method for selecting sea breeze days in an archipelago was developed with special application to the West Coast of Sweden. The primary criterion for identifying a sea breeze was the occurrence of a distinct change in surface wind direction within a 24 h period. The data used in the study were gathered using hourly meteorological records from field stations situated on the West Coast. Six different filters were included in the method; each of them developed from empirical knowledge of the physical processes responsible for the occurrence of a sea breeze system. Using this method it is possible to create a data set of sea breeze days, which does not use distance to the shoreline as a necessary condition for classification. (C) 1998 Royal Meteorological Society.