Truncated Circular Normal Distribution with Applications in Ballistics and Meteorology
Abstract
**Please note that the full text is embargoed** ABSTRACT: The use of the circular normal distribution (CND) to describe the behavior of random phenomena of a geophysical nature has been discussed by Crutcher [7, p. 9]. Based on the Mauchly [17] - Hsu [12] test, the harmonic dial points (the Fourier coefficients obtained from harmonic analysis of observations of periodic phenomena) representing i.) lunar semidiurnal atmospheric tides (Chapman and Lindzen [5, p. 66]), ii.) the westerly component of wind in the study of tidal oscillations in the upper atmosphere (Haurwitz [10]), and iii.) terrestrial-magnetic activity relative to solar activity (Bartels [2]) may be treated as observations from a CND. However, the "cloud" of points is often restricted to circular regions in the plane of the harmonic dial. Perhaps then, in this situation, a CND truncated outside a circular region is a more adequate distribution for the dial points.