Olympic Peninsula Upper Air Radiosonde and Dropsonde Measurements

Olympic Peninsula atmospheric data includes 651 radiosonde launches and dropsonde releases from a NASA DC-8 aircraft, collected between October 28, 2015 and January 16, 2016 for the GPM Ground Validation Olympic Mountain Experiment (OLYMPEX). The dataset provides Level 0 through Level 4 measurements of dew point temperature, pressure, air temperature, relative humidity, and wind components. It is managed by the NASA GHRC DAAC and is available in ASCII, netCDF-3, and PNG plot formats.

Use Cases

• Validating Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite retrievals using in-situ vertical profiles of temperature, humidity, and pressure.
• Analyzing wind dynamics and atmospheric stability with horizontal wind speed, vertical wind speed, and wind direction columns.
• Studying the vertical structure of storms via geopotential height and rise/drop rate measurements from balloon and aircraft platforms.
• Investigating orographic precipitation enhancement on the Olympic Peninsula using time-series data from five ground sites and aircraft.
• Creating Skew-T log-P diagrams for meteorological analysis using the provided PNG plot files.

Strengths

• Contains a specific count of 651 radiosonde launches from five distinct ground locations in the US and Canada.
• Includes complementary dropsonde data from NASA DC-8 aircraft flights, providing a multi-platform observational perspective.
• Offers data at multiple processing levels (Level 0 to Level 4) and in multiple formats (ASCII, netCDF-3, PNG).
• Covers a focused 3-month campaign period during the winter storm season, ideal for precipitation process studies.

Limitations

• Lower-level data (Level 0 through Level 2) is only available upon request, limiting immediate access to raw and intermediate data.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date, with one listing 2016-01 16 and another listing 2026-03-13, creating uncertainty about recent maintenance.
• Specific row counts, file sizes, and a complete column list are not provided on any platform.

Provenance

Source

NASA GHRC DAAC as part of the GPM Ground Validation Olympic Mountain Experiment (OLYMPEX).

Collection Method

In-situ measurements from radiosondes launched from five ground sites and dropsondes released from a NASA DC-8 aircraft.

Time Range

2015 -10-28 to 2016-01-16

Freshness

2026-03-13 02:18:24.574670

Geography

Olympic Peninsula, Pacific Northwest, United States and Canada (sites KSLE, KUIL, NPOL, ECCC, CYZT).