Olympic Peninsula Upper Air Radiosonde and Dropsonde Measurements
Updated 1mo ago
24filesBIN
Available on 2 platforms
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Description
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).
License is specified as 'other-license-specified'; users must review the specific terms. Data is hosted on multiple platforms (NASA Earthdata and Data.gov), which may have different access interfaces.