The Structure and Evolution of Sea Breezes During the Qingdao Olympics Sailing Test Event in 2006

Using data from automatic surface weather stations, buoys, lidar and Doppler, the diurnalvariation and the three-dimensional structure of the sea breezes near the sailing sites of the GoodLuck Beijing---2006 Qingdao International Regatta from 18 to 31 August 2006 are analyzed. Resultsshow that excluding rainy days and days affected by typhoon, the sea breezes occur nearly every dayduring this period. When Qingdao is located at the edge of the subtropical high at 500 hPa, the seabreeze is usually stronger, around 3--4 m s-1. It starts at around 1100 to 1300 LST andlasts about 6 hours. The direction of the sea breeze tends to be southeasterly. When Qingdao is underthe control of the subtropical high, the sea breeze is usually weaker, less than 2.5 m s-1throughout the day, and begins later, between 1300 and 1500 LST. In this case, the direction of thesea breeze is variable from easterly to southeasterly.Most sea breezes in Qingdao are very shallow, up to 300 meters deep. Strong sea breezes can reach 1.5 kmin depth and can push as far as 100 km inland. If the Huanghai sea breeze moves inland and meets the seabreeze of the Jiaozhou Bay in the western part of Qingdao, the sea breeze will strengthen and form threeboundaries due to the interaction of the two sea breezes.