EVALUACIÓN DE LOS PARÁMETROS DEL VIENTO EN LOS PERÍODOS DE LLUVIA Y SEQUÍA EN EL VALLE SUBMARINO DE ARAYA, VENEZUELA. I PARTE

Summary: Wind evaluation is fundamental for understanding our sea dynamics. Lack of meteorological information is acute and there are not systematic meteorological measures in extended regions of Venezuela northeastern area. The aim of these study is to describe wind parameters behavior in Araya underwater valley, in the frame of weather conditions of Caribbean region. In ordert to evaluate wind parameters, information was taken from an automatic Cambell CR 1000 meteorological station located
at at 10 ° 38’ 2,8” Lat. N, 64 ° 02’ 57.7” Long. W, 35 meters above sea level. The information collected corresponds to February and March 2011 (dry season) and August and September of the same year (rainy season) and it consisted of time observations of speed and direction of wind. The field of winds of the South of the Caribbean Sea was related with high pressures in the North Atlantic dry season, showing speeds of 4.0 m/s - 5.0 m/s and the direction from the 1st quadrant extends in the low troposphere up to 3.0 km. In the rainy season, the anticyclone of Azores is weak and scattered, resulting even in two centers (Azores itself and Sargasso). In the rainy season, winds are less intense and decrease to 2.0 m/s - 3.0 m/s. The weakening of the anticyclone encourages the manifestation of other atmospheric structures and it altered the regime of trade winds. The above is supported in specific measurements, this way, the average speed of the wind in February and March was 5.1 m/s and 4.9 m/s, respectively (4.9 m/s). During this time, there are predominant winds with direction E-ENE 69.2% (40.2% and 29.0%, respectively). In August and September the wind speed decreased to 3.7 m/s and 3.4 m/s respectively (3.6 m/s). This season, the winds are more disperse and come from all possible directions. The reponderance of E winds decreased to 25.7% in August and 20.1% in September, while winds from ENE decreased 18.0% in August and 14.9% in September.