Upper Archives 1958-2002

Upper Archives is the most complete set of upper air observations in existence. This set is more complete than those available even to researchers. It contains every radiosonde observation taken in North America (including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Alaska) between January 1, 1961 and December 31, 2002 (with extra data through February 7, 2003). The data is divided into one file per 12-hour period, allowing you to easily generate detailed upper level charts and soundings. The data is in standard TEMP format, also known as TTAA/TTBB/PPBB format, and is readable by nearly all weather software display applications. The set is provided on 2 CD-ROMS, with each month's data compressed as an individual ZIP file. A free ZIP decompressor is provided on each disc.

Create maps and soundings for any historical weather day! Use it for research and for looking at case studies! See what really caused a severe weather outbreak to come together!

Sample data file: January 1, 1990 (00Z) Feel free to examine it and run it through your favorite upper air and sounding software to see how it looks!

Sample output: For a sample of Upper Archives output, check out the upper-level charts leading up to the April 3, 1974 killer tornado outbreak in the Ohio River Valley. Click here to see it. The data was plotted using WeatherGraphix, which is included. Also click here to see the morning sounding for Dayton, Ohio, generated with RAOB, also included. Imagine being able to do this for any big weather day!

Other notes: Throughout the entire 40-year period, there are about five to ten missing hours (less than 0.01% of the available coverage). These occurred due to telecommunications outages and other archival problems. To the best of our knowledge there is no replacement data available. If we find any missing data, we will offer it to all registered users free of charge.