DYCOMS-II Upper Air:  Radiosonde Mandatory and Significant Level 
                      Data


1.0  General Information


The Radiosonde Mandatory and Significant Level Data is one of 
several upper air data sets collected by the University 
Corporation for Atmospheric Research/Joint Office for Science
Support (UCAR/JOSS) as part of the Dynamics and Chemistry of 
Marine Stratocumulus Phase II:  Entrainment Studies (DYCOMS-II)
project.  Included in the data set are mandatory and significant
level radiosonde data from the National Weather Service upper air
sounding sites in San Diego and Oakland, California and Hilo,
Hawaii.  Also included is the military site at Vandenberg Air 
Force Base.  The data cover the period from 7 - 28 July 2001 and 
are typically available twice per day at 00 and 12 UTC.  The data
were acquired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration (NOAA) Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) 
Radiosonde Database (http://raob.fsl.noaa.gov/)


2.0  Data Contact


Scot Loehrer (loehrer@ucar.edu)


3.0  Data and Format Information


FSL Rawinsonde data format

The official FSL data format is similar to the format used by the
National Severe Storms Forecast Center (NSSFC) in Kansas City.  
The first 4 lines of the sounding are identification and 
information lines. All additional lines are data lines.  An entry
of 32767 (original format) or 99999 (new format) indicates that 
the information is either missing, not reported, or not applicable.

                            ---COLUMN NUMBER---

  1      2          3          4          5          6           7
LINTYP
                                header lines
254      HOUR       DAY      MONTH       YEAR    (blank)     (blank)
  1     WBAN#      WMO#        LAT        LON       ELEV       RTIME
  2     HYDRO      MXWD      TROPL      LINES     TINDEX      SOURCE
  3   (blank)     STAID    (blank)    (blank)      SONDE     WSUNITS
                        
                                data lines
  9  PRESSURE    HEIGHT       TEMP      DEWPT   WIND DIR    WIND SPD
  4
  5
  6
  7
  8    

                                    LEGEND

LINTYP: type of identification line
        254 = indicates a new sounding in the output file
          1 = station identification line 
          2 = sounding checks line
          3 = station identifier and other indicators line
          4 = mandatory level 
          5 = significant level
          6 = wind level (PPBB) (GTS or merged data) 
          7 = tropopause level (GTS or merged data)
          8 = maximum wind level (GTS or merged data)
          9 = surface level

HOUR:   time of report in UTC
LAT:    latitude in degrees and hundredths
LON:    longitude in degrees and hundredths
ELEV:   elevation from station history in meters
RTIME:  is the actual release time of radiosonde from TTBB. 
        Appears in GTS data only.
HYDRO:  the pressure of the level to where the sounding passes the
        hydrostatic check (see section 4.3).**
MXWD:   the pressure of the level having the maximum wind in the 
        sounding.  If within the body of the sounding there is no
        "8" level then MXWN is estimated (see section 3.2).
TROPL:  the pressure of the level containing the tropopause. If
        within the body of the sounding there is no "7" level, then
        TROPL is estimated (see section 3.3)** 
LINES:  number of levels in the sounding, including the 4
        identification lines.
TINDEX: indicator for estimated tropopause. A "7" indicates that
        sufficient data was available to attempt the estimation; 11
        indicates that data terminated and that tropopause is a
        "suspected" tropopause.
SOURCE: 0 = National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)
        1 = Atmospheric Environment Service (AES), Canada
        2 = National Severe Storms Forecast Center (NSSFC)
        3 = GTS or FSL GTS data only
        4 = merge of NCDC and GTS data (sources 2,3 merged into
            sources 0,1)
SONDE:  type of radiosonde code from TTBB. Only reported with GTS data
        10 = VIZ "A" type radiosonde
        11 = VIZ "B" type radiosonde
        12 = Space data corp.(SDC) radiosonde.
WSUNITS:wind speed units (selected upon output)
        ms = tenths of meters per second
        kt = knots

PRESSURE: in whole millibars (original format)
          in tenths of millibars (new format)
HEIGHT:   height in meters (m)
TEMP:     temperature in tenths of degrees Celsius
DEWPT:    dew point temperature in tenths of a degree Celsius
WIND DIR: wind direction in degrees
WIND SPD: wind speed in either knots or tenths of a meter per second
          (selected by user upon output)

An example of fortran format statements necessary to read output
rawinsonde data, according to LINTYP, is as follows:

                    LINTYP
                       254    (3i7,6x,a4,i7)
                         1    (3i7,2f7.2,2i7)
                         2    (7i7)
                         3    (i7,10x,a4,14x,i7,5x,a2)
               4,5,6,7,8,9    (7i7) 


**- section of noaa tech memo on the data base (in print)


3.1  Station List

Station Name  State  ID    WMO #    Lat      Lon     Elev
--------------------------------------------------------
Oakland        CA    OAK   72493   37.75   -122.22     6
San Diego      CA    NKX   72293   32.87   -117.15   134
Vandenberg AFB CA    VBG   72393   34.75   -120.57   100
Hilo           HI    ITO   91285   19.72   -155.07    10


4.0  Quality Control Procedures


     UCAR/JOSS conducted no quality checks on these data.


5.0  File Naming Convention


The file names are structured as follows:

soundings_yyyymmdd_mansig.txt

Where soundings is the data type
      yyyy is the four digit year
      mm is the two digit month
      dd is the two digit day
      mansig is the name of the data set


6.0  References


Schwartz, B.E., and M. Govett, 1992: "A hydrostatically consistent
     North American Radiosonde Data Base at the forecast Systems
     Laboratory, 1946-present." NOAA Technical Memorandum ERL FSL-4.
     Available from NOAA/ERL/FSL 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303.