Estimation of the Design Wind Speeds for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Based on Short-term Records

The methods of order statistics and that of moments are examined for estimation of the extreme wind speeds from short-term records of the largest monthly winds taken at the six stations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Basic design wind speeds derived from the largest annual winds taken at the twenty stations of the long-term record, from an earlier study, are employed as the bench mark speeds to assess the reliability of the analyses based on the largest monthly records in the Kingdom. It was found that the method of moments is an appropriate procedure for dealing with short term monthly records and that, in general, it underestimates the design speeds. However, association of probability of 10% of being exceeded with the design speeds so estimated circumvents the situation. A simple procedure for effecting this modification of the design speed is also proposed. The estimated design speeds at the six short-term stations enhance the previous work