Abrupt changes in wind direction and speed can dramatically impact wildfire development and spread, endangering firefighters. A frequent cause of such wind shifts is outflow from thunderstorms and organised convective systems; thus, their identification and prediction present critical challenges for fire weather forecasters. Here, we develop a methodology and implement it in a software tool that can identify and depict convective outflow boundaries in high-resolution numerical weather prediction (NWP) models to provide guidance for fire weather forecasting. The tool can process model output, objectively identify gust fronts, and graphically display detected gust fronts and similar boundaries in NWP model forecasts. The tool is demonstrated with output from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model from the operational High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) forecasting system and from a WRF ensemble run at the National Center for Atmospheric Research that can provide probabilistic information about model-predicted gust fronts. The tool can identify outflow boundaries in model forecasts of convective events occurring in both simple and complex terrain, both with and without concurrent wildfire activity. With accurate underlying model forecast output, the tool can reliably reveal areas of potential gust front activity and thus provide valuable guidance to incident meteorologists and command personnel.

风向和风速的突然变化会严重影响野火的蔓延和蔓延，危及消防员的生命。造成这种风向变化的常见原因是雷暴和有组织的对流系统的流出；因此，它们的识别和预测对火灾天气预报员提出了严峻的挑战。在这里，我们开发一种方法并将其在软件工具中实施，该工具可以识别和描绘高分辨率数值天气预报（NWP）模型中的对流流出边界，从而为火灾天气预报提供指导。该工具可以处理模型输出，客观地识别阵风锋，并以图形方式显示NWP模型预测中检测到的阵风锋和相似边界。该工具通过气象研究与预报（WRF）模型的输出，运行中的高分辨率快速刷新（HRRR）预报系统的输出以及在国家大气研究中心运行的WRF集成进行了演示，可以提供有关模型的概率信息-预测的阵风阵线。该工具可以在简单和复杂地形中发生的对流事件的模型预测中，在有或没有并发野火活动的情况下，识别出模型中的流出边界。利用准确的基础模型预测输出，该工具可以可靠地揭示潜在阵风活动的区域，从而为事故气象学家和指挥人员提供有价值的指导。