Probabilistic forecasts of extreme wind gusts

We document two damaging to destructive wind gust events in Tasmania, Australia, both of which resulted from synoptic-scale weather features and had widespread impacts. In documenting the events, we present a forecast diagnostic using ACCESS-CE (Australian Community Climate and Earth-System Simulator – City Ensemble), a high-resolution ensemble convection-allowing numerical weather prediction model introduced into the Bureau of Meteorology in recent years. In each case, the deterministic high-resolution operational forecast model, ACCESS-C, and especially its ensemble counterpart ACCESS-CE, provided very useful guidance of the potential for damaging to destructive wind gusts, both in respect of timing and of geographical range. The gust probability diagnostic summarised model guidance in a way that permitted rapid assessment by operational meteorologists, and communication to emergency managers of the hazard.