WIND PATTERNS AND THEIR EFFECT ON MT. BALDY, AN IMPAIRED MIGRATING DUNE

Mount Baldy is a migrating parabolic dune located along the southern coast of Lake Michigan near Michigan City, Indiana. The National Park Service at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore has declared the dune an “impaired” landform and is actively working to restore the dune and slow its landward migration through methods that include restricting visitor access, wind breaks and re-vegetation efforts. This project was initiated in an early effort to study wind patterns within the blowout of Mount Baldy. A HOBO U30-NRC Weather Station was established as a reference station on the beach recording wind speed, wind direction, and air temperature at 1 second intervals. A portable system was used to collect wind speed and direction at twenty one points along a transect toward the summit of Mount Baldy. The portable system consists of three R.M. Young Wind Sentry systems (anemometers plus weather vanes) mounted at 0.5 m, 1.0 m and 1.5 m above the ground. The transect runs through one of the most heavily weathered areas of the blowout. Wind data are plotted along the transect and honoring elevation changes to map changes in speed and direction as a deviation from the reference station. The data are used to determine of where wind speed is changing and the areas of highest winds compared to the slope. The goal of this research is to develop a method of monitoring and mapping wind data so that recommendations can be made to guide the construction of structures designed to slow wind movement or to direct where plantings of native fauna are likely to succeed.