National Weather Service (NWS) High Resolution Radiosonde Data 1.0 General Description This is one of the upper air data sets developed for the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment 2 (VORTEX2). This data set includes 1986 high vertical resolution (1-second) Radiosonde Replacement System (RRS) soundings from 16 National Weather Service (NWS) rawinsonde stations and 125 high vertical resolution (6-second) MicroArt soundings from Dodge City, Kansas for the VORTEX2 2009 area and time of interest. In addition, this data set includes 1576 high vertical resolution (1-second) Radiosonde Replacement System (RRS) soundings from 17 National Weather Service (NWS) rawinsonde stations and 85 high vertical resolution (6-second) MicroArt soundings from Dodge City, KS for the VORTEX2 2010 area and time of interest. Note that Dodge City, KS radiosonde data stops at 1200 UTC on 11 June 2010 due to the start of the changeover to the RRS radiosonde. This data set covers the period from 1 May to 30 June 2009 and 1 May to 15 June 2010. The soundings were typically released twice a day (0000 and 1200 UTC). The data are in EOL Sounding Composite format (columnar ascii). 1.1 Data Set Contact Steve Williams NCAR/EOL sfw@ucar.edu 2.0 Detailed Data Description 2.0.1 National Weather Service High-Resolution Sounding Algorithms The detailed description of NWS MicroArt sounding collection and instrumentation is located in NWS (1991). The detailed description of the NWS Radiosonde Replacement System (RRS) sounding collection and instrumentation is located in http://www.ua.nws.noaa.gov/RRS.htm 2.1 Detailed Format Description All upper air soundings were converted to the National Center for Atmospheric Research/Earth Observing Laboratory (NCAR/EOL) Sounding Composite Format (ESC). ESC is a version of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) CLASS format and is an ASCII format consisting of 15 header records for each sounding followed by the data records with associated QC information. Header Records The header records (15 total records) contain data type, project ID, site ID, site location, release time, sonde type, meteorological and wind data processors, and the operator's name and comments. The first five header lines contain information identifying the sounding, and have a rigidly defined form. The following 7 header lines are used for auxiliary information and comments about the sounding, and may vary from dataset to dataset. The last 3 header records contain header information for the data columns. Line 13 holds the field names, line 14 the field units, and line 15 contains dashes ('-' characters) delineating the extent of the field. The five standard header lines are as follows: Line Label (padded to 35 char) Contents 1 Data Type: Description of type and resolution of data. 2 Project ID: ID of weather project. 3 Release Site Type/Site ID: Description of release site. 4 Release Location (lon,lat,alt): Position of release site, in format described below. 5 UTC Release Time (y,m,d,h,m,s): Time of release, in format: yyyy, mm, dd, hh:mm:ss The release location is given as: lon (deg min), lat (deg min), lon (dec. deg), lat (dec. deg), alt (m) Longitude in deg min is in the format: ddd mm.mm'W where ddd is the number of degrees from True North (with leading zeros if necessary), mm.mm is the decimal number of minutes, and W represents W or E for west or east longitude, respectively. Latitude has the same format as longitude, except there are only two digits for degrees and N or S for north/south latitude. The decimal equivalent of longitude and latitude and station elevation follow. The seven non-standard header lines may contain any label and contents. The labels are padded to 35 characters to match the standard header lines. Records for the MicroArt data at Topeka, KS include the following three non-standard header lines. Line Label (padded to 35 char) Contents 6 Ascension No: 1299 7 Radiosonde Serial Number: 152551614 8 Radiosonde Manufacturer: Vaisala Records for the RRS data at the remaining stations include the following non-standard header lines: 6 Ascension Number: 64 7 Radiosonde Serial Number: 85081439 8 Balloon Manufacturer/Type: Kaysam / GP26 9 Balloon Lot Number/Weight: 8 / 0.700 10 Radiosonde Type/RH Sensor Type: Sippican Mark IIA with chip thermistor, pressure / Sippican Mark IIA Carbon Hygristor 11 Surface Observations: P: 958.1, T: -2.6, RH: 65.0, WS: 10.8, WD: 305.0 Data Records The data records each contain time from release, pressure, temperature, dew point, relative humidity, U and V wind components, wind speed and direction, ascent rate, balloon position data, altitude, and quality control flags (see the QC code description). Each data line contains 21 fields, separated by spaces, with a total width of 130 characters. The data are right-justified within the fields. All fields have one decimal place of precision, with the exception of latitude and longitude, which have three decimal places of precision. The contents and sizes of the 21 fields that appear in each data record are as follows: Field Format No. Width Parameter Units Missing Value ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 6 F6.1 Time Seconds 9999.0 2 6 F6.1 Pressure Millibars 9999.0 3 5 F5.1 Dry-bulb Temperature Degrees C 999.0 4 5 F5.1 Dew Point Temperature Degrees C 999.0 5 5 F5.1 Relative Humidity Percent 999.0 6 6 F6.1 U Wind Component Meters / Second 9999.0 7 6 F6.1 V Wind Component Meters / Second 9999.0 8 5 F5.1 Wind Speed Meters / Second 999.0 9 5 F5.1 Wind Direction Degrees 999.0 10 5 F5.1 Ascension Rate Meters / Second 999.0 11 8 F8.3 Longitude Degrees 9999.0 12 7 F7.3 Latitude Degrees 999.0 13 5 F5.1 Elevation Angle Degrees 999.0 14 5 F5.1 Azimuth Angle Degrees 999.0 15 7 F7.1 Altitude Meters 99999.0 16 4 F4.1 QC for Pressure Code (see below) 99.0 17 4 F4.1 QC for Temperature Code (see below) 99.0 18 4 F4.1 QC for Humidity Code (see below) 99.0 19 4 F4.1 QC for U Component Code (see below) 99.0 20 4 F4.1 QC for V Component Code (see below) 99.0 21 4 F4.1 QC for Ascension Rate Code (see below) 99.0 Fields 16 through 21 contain the Quality Control information derived at the NCAR Earth Observing Laboratory (NCAR/EOL). Any QC information from the original sounding is replaced by the following EOL codes: Code Description 99.0 Unchecked (QC information is "missing.") ("UNCHECKED") 1.0 Checked, datum seems physically reasonable. ("GOOD") 2.0 Checked, datum seems questionable on physical basis.("MAYBE") 3.0 Checked, datum seems to be in error. ("BAD") 4.0 Checked, datum is interpolated. ("ESTIMATED") 9.0 Checked, datum was missing in original file. ("MISSING") Sample Data The following is a sample record of VORTEX2 2009 NWS Radiosondee upper air data in EOL ESC format. The data portion is much longer than 80 characters and, therefore, may wrap around to a second line. See section 2.1 for an exact format specification Data Type: National Weather Service Sounding/Ascending Project ID: VORTEX2_2009 Release Site Type/Site ID: KTOP Topeka, KS / 72456 Release Location (lon,lat,alt): 095 37.79'W, 39 04.38'N, -95.630, 39.073, 268.0 UTC Release Time (y,m,d,h,m,s): 2009, 06, 19, 23:29:58 Ascension Number: 340 Radiosonde Serial Number: 85099087 Balloon Manufacturer/Type: Totex / GP26 Balloon Lot Number/Weight: 91 / 0.700 Radiosonde Type/RH Sensor Type: Sippican Mark IIA with chip thermistor, pressure / Sippican Mark IIA Carbon Hygristor Surface Observations: P: 974.2, T: 25.3, RH: 56.0, WS: 3.1, WD: 195.0 Nominal Release Time (y,m,d,h,m,s):2009, 06, 20, 00:00:00 Time Press Temp Dewpt RH Ucmp Vcmp spd dir Wcmp Lon Lat Ele Azi Alt Qp Qt Qrh Qu Qv QdZ sec mb C C % m/s m/s m/s deg m/s deg deg deg deg m code code code code code code ------ ------ ----- ----- ----- ------ ------ ----- ----- ----- -------- ------- ----- ----- ------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- 0.0 974.2 29.3 19.9 57.0 1.1 2.9 3.1 200.8 999.0 -95.630 39.073 999.0 999.0 268.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 9.0 1.0 973.4 29.1 19.5 56.2 2.3 3.5 4.2 213.3 8.0 -95.629 39.074 999.0 999.0 276.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 99.0 2.0 972.7 29.1 19.5 56.3 2.4 3.6 4.3 213.7 6.0 -95.629 39.074 999.0 999.0 282.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 99.0 3.0 972.1 29.0 19.3 56.0 2.6 3.8 4.6 214.4 6.0 -95.629 39.074 999.0 999.0 288.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 99.0 4.0 971.5 29.0 19.4 56.3 2.7 3.9 4.7 214.7 5.0 -95.629 39.074 999.0 999.0 293.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 99.0 5.0 970.9 29.0 19.5 56.5 2.9 4.0 4.9 215.9 5.0 -95.629 39.074 999.0 999.0 298.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 99.0 2.2 Data Remarks For the MicroArt station data at Topeka, KS the use of the raw 6-sec resolution elevation and azimuth angle data to derive the winds sometimes led to large oscillations in wind speed, due to the presence of oscillations in the elevation angle data, particularly at low elevation angles. The general approach to correct this problem was to remove the out-lier radiosonde position data before computing the wind components (Williams et al. 1993). For both the azimuth and elevation angles from 360 sec to the end of the sounding, a ninth order polynomial was fit to the curve. The residuals were calculated and compared to the observed values. The outliers of the residuals were then removed. Then to help correct the more extensive problems at low elevation angles within 10 degrees of the limiting angles (LA) some additional smoothing was applied. If the elevation angle was between (LA + 7.5) and (LA + 10), the new elevation angle was computed with a 2 min linear fit. If the elevation angle was between (LA + 5) and (LA + 7.5), the new elevation angle was computed with a 3 min linear fit. If the elevation angle was less than (LA + 5), the new elevation angle was computed with a 4 min linear fit. If the number of observations with low elevation angles was greater than 20% of the total number of observations for the sounding no frequency smoothing occurred. Then, for the elevation angle only, a finite Fourier analysis was performed on the residuals. Periods from 90-190 sec were removed and those below 30 sec were flattened. Finally, a 2 min second order polynomial was then fit to the position to derive the u and v wind components, except for the beginning and end minute (or 1.5 minutes if over 50 mb) which used a 3 min fit. If there were less than 15% of the total number of points, not counting the beginning or end of the flight, on one side of the point for which the wind value was being computed, a linear fit was used. For further information on this methodology and its changes since Williams et al. (1993) please see Williams, et al. (1998). 2.3 Station List ID SITE STATE COUNTRY LONG LAT ELEV (m) SONDE TYPE ------------------------------------------------------------------------- DDC Dodge City KS US -100.0 37.8 788.9 VIZ B2 KABQ Albuquerque NM US -106.6 35.0 1619.0 Sippican Mark IIA KABR Aberdeen SD US -98.4 45.5 398.0 Sippican Mark IIA KAMA Amarillo TX US -101.7 35.2 1095.0 Sippican Mark IIA KDNR Denver CO US -104.9 39.8 1611.0 Sippican Mark IIA KFWD Fort Worth TX US -97.3 32.8 195.0 Sippican Mark IIA KLBF North Platte NE US -100.7 41.1 849.0 Sippican Mark IIA KLZK Little Rock AR US -92.3 34.8 173.0 Sippican Mark IIA KMAF Midland TX US -102.2 31.9 874.0 Sippican Mark IIA KMPX Minneapolis MN US -93.6 44.8 290.0 Sippican Mark IIA KOAX Omaha/Valley NE US -96.4 41.3 351.0 Sippican Mark IIA KOUN Norman OK US -97.4 35.2 345.0 Sippican Mark IIA KRAP Rapid City SD US -103.2 44.1 1029.0 Sippican Mark IIA KRIW Riverton WY US -108.5 43.1 1699.0 Sippican Mark IIA KSGF Springfield MO US -93.4 37.2 391.0 Sippican Mark IIA KSHV Shreveport LA US -93.8 32.5 85.0 Sippican Mark IIA KTOP Topeka KS US -95.6 39.1 268.0 Sippican Mark IIA Note all but the Dodge City, Kansas site used the Radiosonde Replacement System (RRS). These soundings utilized the Global Positioning System (GPS) to derive the winds. NCAR/EOL did no additional processing to the wind data provided in these soundings. NCAR/EOL utilized the processed version of the RRS data. This means the data were smoothed and had corrections applied (e.g. solar radiation correction) by the NWS. NCAR/EOL conducted no additional processing on these data. 3.0 RRS Code Tables The Radisonde Replacement System (RRS) soundings use a set of codes to define sections of the metadata for the sounding. The codes are included in the sounding headers and can be translated with the following tables. 3.1 Code Table 9-1 Radiosonde Type ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Code | Meaning ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0-50 Defined or Reserved 51 VIZ-B2 (USA) 52 Vaisala RS80-57H 53-86 Defined or Reserved 87 Sippican Mark IIA with chip thermistor, pressure 88-254 Defined or Reserved 255 Mising value ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.2 Code Table 9-9 Balloon Manufacturer ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Code | Meaning ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 Kaysam 1 Totex 2 KKS 3-61 Reserved 62 Other 63 Missing value ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.3 Code Table 9-10a Type of Balloon ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Code | Meaning ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 GP26 1 GP28 2 GP30 3 HM26 4 HM28 5 HM30 6 SV16 7-29 Reserved 30 Other 31 Missing value ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.0 References NWS, 1991: Micro-ART Observation and Rework Programs Technical Document, National Weather Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Washington, D.C., March 1991. Williams, S. F., C. G. Wade, and C. Morel, 1993: A comparison of high resolution radiosonde winds: 6-second Micro-ART winds versus 10-second CLASS LORAN winds. Preprints, Eighth Symposium on Meteorological Observations and Instrumentation, Anaheim, California, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 60-65. Williams, S. F., S. M. Loehrer, and D. R. Gallant, 1998: Computation of high-resolution National Weather Service rawinsonde winds. Preprints, Tenth Symposium on Meteorological Observations and Instrumentation, Phoenix, AZ, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 387-391.