WINDS AND WAVES FROM THE CANADIAN PRAIRIES (CNSR) TRIPLE-MF RADAR SYSTEM

Two Medium Frequency radars have been developed 500 km from the Saskatoon MF Radar (52.2N,107.1W) to form a triangle within the Canadian Prairies. The western system is at Sylvan Lake (52.4N,114.1W) in the lee of the Rockies and the southern system is at Robsart (49.2N,109.3W). In this preliminary assessment of winds data, daily mean winds and solar tides (24-, 12-hour) are shown to be very similar, with short-term variations of several days being seen at all three radars. This shows that such short term changes are of larger scale than 500 km. Variations of the wind field with periods ranging from minutes to several hours are seen at all radars, presumably associated with Internal Gravity Waves. Of these only the longer periods appear to be correlated over this spatial scale. Spectral analysis techniques developed for the smaller GRAVNET system are applied to these oscillations, as are hodograph techniques, to determine the IGW characteristics.