North American Upper Air Weather Observations for Assimilation
Updated 7y ago
Available on 1 platform
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Description
North American regional synoptic upper air reports include radiosondes, pibals, aircraft, and satellite data. The reports contain pressure, geopotential height, temperature, dew point depression, wind direction, and speed at up to 20 mandatory levels. Data is operationally collected by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) from October 2000 onward.
Use Cases
Validate regional weather model forecasts by comparing predicted geopotential height and temperature against observed values.
Analyze vertical atmospheric profiles by examining pressure, temperature, and dew point depression across mandatory levels.
Study wind patterns over North America using wind direction and speed observations from radiosondes and aircraft.
Assimilate observational data into the NAM Data Assimilation System using pressure, temperature, and wind fields.
Monitor atmospheric moisture content through dew point depression measurements from satellite and ground reports.
Strengths
Data spans from October 2000 to the present, providing a long-term observational record.
Reports include up to 20 mandatory atmospheric levels from 1000 millibars to 1 millibar.
Integrates multiple data sources: radiosondes, pibals, aircraft reports, and satellite data.
Limitations
Geographic coverage is regional, centered over North America, not global.
Report time intervals range from 3 to 12 hours, which may limit temporal resolution for some analyses.
Specific row counts, column details, and sample sizes are unknown.
Provenance
Source
National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), via the Global Telecommunications System (GTS) and National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS).
Collection Method
Operational collection of radiosonde, pibal, aircraft, and satellite reports.
Time Range
October 2000 - continuing
Freshness
Operationally collected and updated; last documented platform update was April 2019.
Geography
Regional coverage centered over North America.
Data is a subset; global coverage over the same period is provided by dataset DS351.0. License and specific file formats are unknown.