TITLE: Canadian (GTS mandatory/significant levels) Rawinsonde Data
CONTACTS:
Steve Williams
NCAR/EOL
P.O. Box 3000
Boulder, CO 80307-3000
phone: 303-497-8164
email: sfw@ucar.edu
1.0 DATA SET OVERVIEW
This data set contains the mandatory and significant level radiosonde
data from 33 Canadian radiosonde stations in the START08 region. These data were
grabbed from the NOAA ESRL/GSD Radiosonde data archive for the START08
period (April through June 2008). Each file contains one month of data
for all stations. The data are in columnar ASCII.
2.0 INSTRUMENT DESCRIPTION
2.1 Instrumentation information
No information at this time.
2.2 Station Locations
The station locations are from the data files.
ID WBAN# WMO# LAT LON ELEV(m) # Sondes Name
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
YMW 4734 71722 46.38 -75.97 170 38 MANIWAKI, PQ
YJT 14503 71815 48.53 -58.55 60 24 STEPHENVILLE/HARMON AFB,NF
YYT 14531 71801 47.67 -52.75 140 29 TORBAY/ST JOHNS, NF
YSA 14642 71600 43.93 -60.02 4 27 SABLE ISLAND,NS
YCX 14685 71701 45.83 -66.43 52 100 GAGETOWN,NB
YYR 15601 71816 53.30 -60.37 36 9 GOOSE/GOOSE BAY,NF
YZV 15636 71811 50.22 -66.27 52 27 SEPT ILES(UA),PQ
YVP 15641 71906 58.10 -68.42 60 29 KUUJJUAQ (UA),PQ
YPH 15704 71907 58.45 -78.12 26 34 INUKJUAK,Q
YAH 15708 71823 53.75 -73.67 307 14 LA GRANDE IV,PQ
YMO 15803 71836 51.27 -80.65 10 7 MOOSONEE,PQ
YYQ 15901 71913 58.75 -94.07 29 19 CHURCHILL,MB
WPL 15907 71845 51.47 -90.20 386 28 PICKLE LAKE,ON
YVN 16607 71909 63.75 -68.55 35 10 IQALUIT (UA),NW
YZS 16801 71915 64.20 -83.37 57 30 CORAL HARBOUR,NW
YUX 16895 71081 68.78 -81.25 7 28 HALL BEACH/HALL LK,NW
YBK 16910 71926 64.30 -96.00 49 24 BAKER LAKE (UA),NW
YRB 17901 71924 74.72 -94.98 40 29 RESOLUTE,NW
YLT 18601 71082 82.50 -62.33 66 24 ALERT,NW
YEU 18801 71917 79.98 -85.93 10 8 EUREKA,NW
YEV 22258 71957 68.32 -133.53 103 16 INUVIK (UA),NW
YQD 25004 71867 53.97 -101.10 273 9 THE PAS,MB
WSE 25145 71119 53.55 -114.10 766 25 EDMONTON/STONY PLAIN,AB
WIQ 25154 71124 54.80 -110.08 703 14 PRIMROSE LAKE,AB
ZXS 25206 71908 53.90 -122.80 601 22 PRINCE GEORGE,BC
YZT 25223 71109 50.68 -127.37 17 26 PORT HARDY,BC
YYE 25262 71945 58.83 -122.60 377 9 FORT NELSON UA,BC
YCB 26005 71925 69.10 -105.12 25 15 CAMBRIDGE BAY,NW
YSM 26118 71934 60.03 -111.95 203 24 FT SMITH (UA),NW
YVQ 26214 71043 65.28 -126.75 95 12 NORMAN WELLS (UA),NW
YXY 26316 71964 60.72 -135.07 704 11 WHITEHORSE,YK
YLW 94151 71203 49.97 -119.38 454 15 KELOWNA APT,BC
WQI 94620 71603 43.87 -66.05 9 21 YARMOUTH,NS
3.0 DATA COLLECTION AND PROCESSING
NCAR/EOL conducted no processing or quality control on these data.
4.0 DATA FORMAT AND FILE NAMING
4.1 File Naming conventions
Files have names like: START08_200804_Canada_GTS.txt
4.2 Data Format
These data are columnar ASCII.
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 D LON D 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
D: direction latitude ('N' or 'S') or longitude ('E' or 'W') -note this
only appears in the online archive containing international
observations.
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,f7.2,a1,f6.2,a1,i6,i7)
2 (7i7)
3 (i7,10x,a4,14x,i7,5x,a2)
4,5,6,7,8,9 (7i7)
Note the format descriptor for LINTYP=1 has changed to conform with the
CDROM archive.
**- section of noaa tech memo on the data base (in print)
TECHNICAL INFORMATION: 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.
5.0 DATA REMARKS
None.