A climatological study of the influence of synoptic-scale flows on sea breeze evolution in the Bay of Alicante (Spain)

The focus of this study is on sea breeze (SB) characteristics during May and August in the Bay of Alicante (south-eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula, IP, Spain) for the period 2000–2005 in relation to dominating synoptic-scale winds. A dataset containing 292 SB events was objectively constructed to study the impact of the daily synoptic winds at 850 hPa on the main characteristics of SBs. The winds were used to designate three major synoptic-scale regimes: offshore, onshore, and coast-parallel flows. The SB features examined include mean lag of the SB passage, wind speed and direction at the time of onset, mean lag of SB cessation, mean duration of SB, mean maximum velocity, and inland propagation of SB. Some of the characteristics had not been previously considered in the literature. It is found that in comparison with onshore synoptic flows, offshore favors the delayed arrival and termination of SBs, resulting in a longer mean duration. Further, they produce the most intense passages, cause a more frequent southeasterly component, and result in a higher SB gust speed and shorter mean inland penetration. Results from coast-parallel flows are also presented. The strength of the large-scale flows plays a major role upon SB parameters, which essentially support other numerical modeling results.