Wind hazard is one of the most severe natural hazards. Structures and infrastructure can be vulnerable to wind load effects due to extreme wind speeds. Mitigation and the reduction of wind-related risks of structures and infrastructures can be made by considering the wind load effects within the structural design process. Building design codes or standards for some countries in the Arabian Peninsula do not formally define the wind load effects. For countries with wind load provisions in their building codes and standards, the spatial resolution of design wind speeds may not be sufficient to cover many cities or areas. To date, there has not been a comprehensive study on the extreme wind hazards at the design level in the Arabian Peninsula. Extreme wind hazards have been conventionally evaluated by using historical surface observations. However, an investigation showed that many meteorological stations in the Arabian Peninsula cannot be used to evaluate the design wind speeds due to low data quality or insufficient sampling resolution. This study used the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to obtain data with a high spatial-temporal resolution. The simulated extreme wind speeds across the Arabian Peninsula were characterized statistically. Spatial distributions of the extreme wind speeds and their associated attributes were investigated. The simulated wind speeds were separated into convective event-induced wind speeds and synoptic wind speeds to obtain the design wind speeds. The convective wind events were identified using a statistical algorithm defining the threshold values of the Lifted Index and the Convective Available Potential Energy values. A numerical parametric cyclone model was used to simulate the cyclone-induced extreme wind speeds for the southern coastal regions of the Arabian Peninsula. The design wind speeds were evaluated by using the most appropriate probability distribution and preferred fitting method. Contour maps of various return period wind speeds were developed.

风灾是最严重的自然灾害之一。由于极端的风速，结构和基础设施可能容易受到风荷载的影响。可以通过考虑结构设计过程中的风荷载效应来减轻和减少结构和基础设施与风有关的风险。阿拉伯半岛某些国家/地区的建筑设计规范或标准并未正式定义风荷载的影响。对于在其建筑规范和标准中规定了风荷载的国家，设计风速的空间分辨率可能不足以覆盖许多城市或地区。迄今为止，尚未在阿拉伯半岛的设计水平上对极端风灾进行全面研究。传统上已经通过使用历史地面观测来评估极端风灾危害。然而，一项调查显示，由于数据质量低或采样分辨率不足，阿拉伯半岛的许多气象站无法用于评估设计风速。这项研究使用天气研究和预报（WRF）模型来获得具有高时空分辨率的数据。对阿拉伯半岛上模拟的极端风速进行了统计表征。研究了极端风速的空间分布及其相关属性。将模拟风速分为对流事件诱发风速和天气风速，以获得设计风速。使用定义提升指数阈值和对流可用势能值的统计算法识别对流风事件。使用数值参数旋风模型来模拟阿拉伯半岛南部沿海地区的旋风诱发的极端风速。通过使用最合适的概率分布和首选拟合方法来评估设计风速。绘制了各种返回期风速的等高线图。