Mechanisms Accounting for the Formation of the Strong Winds that Caused the Tripping Incident of Transmission Line in Eastern Inner Mongolia

Abstract

Meteorological disasters pose a serious threat to the State Grid Corporation of China, which covers ~ 88% of Chinese national territory. Of these, strong winds deserve a special attention, as they often induce windage yaw discharge of transmission lines and even toppling of transmission towers, resulting in serious economic losses. On 28 June 2023, a severe tripping incident of transmission line appears in Eastern Inner Mongolia due to strong winds. In this study, we conduct comprehensive analyses to clarify the favorable background conditions and governing mechanisms for producing the strong winds. Main results are shown as follows. Synoptic analysis indicates that, the favorable background environments for the event are characterized by a strong upper-level jet associated upper tropospheric divergence; an intense middle-level warm advection ahead of a shortwave trough; and a long-lived lower-tropospheric mesoscale vortex. The strong winds that cause the tripping incident mainly occur in the southeastern quadrant of the vortex. Vorticity budget presents that the period from the mesoscale-vortex’s formation to 4 h before is crucial to the mesoscale vortex, as cyclonic vorticity increases rapidly mainly due to the lower-level convergence-related vertical stretching. In contrast, the horizontal transport mainly results in a net export of cyclonic vorticity, which is the most detrimental factor. Kinetic energy (KE) budget shows that, after the mesoscale vortex forms, the strong winds within its southeastern quadrant enhance rapidly. Overall, the positive work done by the pressure gradient force associated with the mesoscale vortex dominates the enhancement of strong winds; the horizontal transport of KE is the second dominant factor, and the vertical transport of KE (i.e., the downward momentum transportation) shows the least contribution.