The Weather Forecasting Forum

Guys

Iam very new to this but where can I get upper level data, obviously not from METor SYN so where??? I am in Australia so any aussie help mucho appreciated.


Dan Raymond

Dan,

Upper-level data is also called radiosonde data. Click on the "Retrieve data" button on the toolbar and you will see the options presented. There should be 2 or 3 university servers to choose from.

hth,
Bob

Thanks texsky,

I think trouble is in getting data for Oz. the worldwide servers only carry major capital cities so al lI get in a contour is many small contours around say Melbourne or Sydney.

I think somewhere there is radiosonde data for Oz. I just need to find out where?

thanks again
Dan

Try changing the link for the COD site to this:

http://weather.cod.edu/digatmos/upa/@Y@M@D@X.upa

For some reason that X at the end got changed to an S (sometimes special soundings are launched at 6-hour time frames)...you should get a few more stations with that link.

The Scripps link stills seems ok.

Make sure you don't have your map scale set too low as well. Just generate a map for the whole of Australia without zooming in.

Dan,

This evening's(00Z) upper-air data file shows 6 different sites reporting for Australia.

WMO:
94430, 94461, 94510, 94578, 94610 & 94637

This morning's(12Z) sounding shows 7 sites reporting including a few different stations. They are...94866, 94975, 94120, 94302 & 94672.

Admittedly, that's not a tremendous selection to work with, but there's at least a handful. You should be able to make a few decent upper-air maps with this kind of coverage, but certainly it won't be extremely accurate. It all depends on what you're looking for.

hth,
Bob

Whoa...I just quickly downloaded yesterday's 00Z data and there are at least 20 stations displayed for Australia. So obviously there's some variability going on, but hopefully there's enough for you to work with. Also, the time the data is downloaded is going to be a factor. I'm not sure when the Aussie stations report in, but it may take a few hours for the University servers to receive them.

Changing that last S to an X in the radiosonde links will help as well...for some reason these got converted into 6-hourlies instead of 12..except for the Scripps link.

At times the S in the link will download them all..at 00Z and 12Z...at times it won't....at 06Z and 18Z (about 10% or less of the normal).. So to make sure you are getting all of the stations change one of them to an X and wait for an hour or so after 00Z and 12Z.

As I said...upper air data is spaced so far apart you'll want to make certain you keep the map scale fairly large...Generate a map for Australia without zooming...or Australia and NZ. Otherwise you're apt to end up with loops around one station as you described. This is because you might be trying to do a small scale analysis with limited data. Too small of an area may have just caused your problems earlier.

Thanks very much all of you!

the S to X in the radiosonde data has helped a great deal. I will eventually understand what's where, thanks for insight

Dan Raymond

I'm actually glad you brought it up! I hadn't been paying much attention to DAWS regarding upper air data until I read your post and downloaded a 145KB or so file:) Seemed a bit small.....