Road Weather Management Program
photos of lightning, trucks plowing snow, an empty road before a storm, and an evacuation
Office of Operations 21st century operations using 21st century technologies

Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

Best Practices > Publications > Publication Titles

Title:

Modelling of Road Surface Temperature from a Geographical Parameter Database, Part 2: Numerical

Abstract:

A new ice prediction strategy is presented based on the numerical modelling of surveyed geographical parameters. This approach enables the thermal projection of road surface temperatures across the road network entirely by model predictions and without the need for thermal maps. The influence of eight geographical parameters (latitude, altitude, sky-view factor, screening, roughness length, road construction, traffic density and topography) is investigated by means of sensitivity analyses. The sky-view factor is highlighted as the dominant control on road surface temperature, particularly at high levels of atmospheric stability. A numerical road weather model incorporating all eight parameters was run over 20 nights using forecast and retrospective meteorological data. The model has the ability to explain up to 72 percent of the variation in road surface temperature purely by thermally projecting surface temperature using geographical variables. Retrospective results produce an average r.m.s. error of one degree Celcius which is comparable to existing UK road weather models.

Source(s):

Meteorological Applications of the Royal Meteorological Society Vol. 8, University of Birmingham Climate and Atmospheric Research Group (United Kingdom). For an electronic copy of this resource, please direct your request to WeatherFeedback@dot.gov.

Date: 2001

Author:

Chapman, Thornes, Bradley

Keywords:


Pavement condition
Ice/Frost
Forecast/Prediction

PDF files can be viewed with the Acrobat® Reader®.
Office of Operations