Specifying wind gusts based on wind speed increments and forecasting gustiness

Wind gust forecasting is crucial for mitigating damage to people and property. We define gusts as rapid wind speed changes exceeding application-specific thresholds, and propose forecasting gustiness, that is, the number of gusts per time unit. For the forecasting, we employ a correlation between gustiness and variance of wind speed increments, quantified in an analysis of measured offshore data. By modeling speed increment variance with an autoregressive process, we construct a predictor for gustiness to surpass a threshold. The method is exemplified for rapid changes of wind-induced drag forces. After optimizing the forecasting procedure, we observe specificity comparable to a baseline persistence model, with significantly improved sensitivity. Our methodology of defining gusts and forecasting gustiness offers lots of room for improvements. Further developments may lead to high-quality forecasting in real-world applications.