Preliminary extreme wind speed estimates for the Auckland Region

Abstract

Extreme winds can be dangerous for people and cause significant damage to property and buildings. Analysing the historical wind data to gain a better understanding of the space and time distribution of extreme winds is essential to produce appropriate design wind speeds. However, the historical wind data set have not been analysed in New Zealand for the past 2 decades for this purpose. This study is aimed at investigating the historical wind data at six meteorological stations in the Auckland region, correcting them for site exposure and eliminating the discontinuities in the recorded data, in order to estimate extreme gust wind speeds for a return period of 50 years, using three different methods. A contour map for the extreme winds is produced for the selected region. Finally, the results are compared with the current values given in AS/NZ1170.2. It was found that there was considerable variation in the predictions from the different anemometer stations.