Cold front and strong gusty winds over southwestern Finland

Conclusion

This particular strong wind event was characterized by a mesoscale convective line. It was not present in actual operational models except in 2.5 km resolution AROME model.

For a forecaster this was clearly a challenge because choosing one model over many others is not a straightforward thing to do. However, an unstable situation was present in all models.

Coupled with a cold front this kind of setup should raise awareness of possibly high wind gusts and convection. Gusts could have been forecasted based on unstable conditions associated with a cold front, but forecasting average wind speed near 20 m/s may have not been reasonable because even if AROME model was chosen over other models, the strong wind observed was caused by a quick increase in wind speed due to a cold front coupled with convective wind gusts, not as persistent strong wind.