Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

ATMOSPHERIC MODELING IN SUPPORT OF A ROADWAY ACCIDENT

Journal Article · · National Weather Digest
OSTI ID:993062

The United States Forest Service-Savannah River (USFS) routinely performs prescribed fires at the Savannah River Site (SRS), a Department of Energy (DOE) facility located in southwest South Carolina. This facility covers {approx}800 square kilometers and is mainly wooded except for scattered industrial areas containing facilities used in managing nuclear materials for national defense and waste processing. Prescribed fires of forest undergrowth are necessary to reduce the risk of inadvertent wild fires which have the potential to destroy large areas and threaten nuclear facility operations. This paper discusses meteorological observations and numerical model simulations from a period in early 2002 of an incident involving an early-morning multicar accident caused by poor visibility along a major roadway on the northern border of the SRS. At the time of the accident, it was not clear if the limited visibility was due solely to fog or whether smoke from a prescribed burn conducted the previous day just to the northwest of the crash site had contributed to the visibility. Through use of available meteorological information and detailed modeling, it was determined that the primary reason for the low visibility on this night was fog induced by meteorological conditions.

Research Organization:
SRS
Sponsoring Organization:
DOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC09-08SR22470
OSTI ID:
993062
Report Number(s):
SRNL-STI-2010-00658
Journal Information:
National Weather Digest, Journal Name: National Weather Digest
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English