Upper air data download from Iowa

[jrleeman]

When downloading the same sounding (May 10, 2010 00Z) from Wyoming and Iowa I get different plots. The Iowa download produces a segmented plot. See attached.

[dopplershift]

Lovely.

[jrleeman]

Fascinating isn't it?

[jrleeman]

Ok - this appears to be due to the fact that the IA State data has many missing values. I'm not totally sure I understand what is going on. Here are the first 29 lines of the same sounding (5/10/12 @ 12 UTC for OUN) from each and the text dump from IA State. I'm confused by the information from Wisconsin missing from IA State and some of the values not being the same.

Wisconsin

T    Td      p          u          v
0    13.8  12.5  972.0  -4.500000   7.794229
1    13.8  12.6  970.0  -5.000000   8.660254
2    12.3  12.1  941.8 -11.410693  24.470310
3    12.0  12.0  935.0 -10.092613  29.311076
4    13.8  13.8  927.0  -7.484821  35.213314
5    13.6  13.6  925.0  -6.424983  36.437887
6    13.8  13.8  915.0   4.096320  46.821151
7    15.2  15.2  908.4  13.717409  51.194069
8    16.2  16.2  904.0  14.333143  49.985608
9    16.8  16.8  890.0  18.276765  47.612602
10   16.5  16.5  876.6  20.708295  44.409082
11   15.8  15.8  850.0  29.825975  42.595906
12   15.4  15.4  829.0  28.320428  36.248495
13   14.7  14.7  816.0  26.997080  32.173867
14   13.2  13.2  787.1  25.711504  30.641778
15   13.0  13.0  783.0  25.711504  30.641778
16   11.4  11.4  768.0  24.425929  29.109689
17   11.0  11.0  759.1  23.783142  28.343644
18    9.8   9.8  736.0  23.140354  27.577600
19    9.4   8.8  731.8  23.140354  27.577600
20    3.6  -4.5  679.0  27.189234  12.678548
21    0.8 -11.1  654.0  27.189234  12.678548
22   -0.9 -14.9  640.0  26.282926  12.255930
23   -3.3 -17.7  605.8  25.376618  11.833311
24   -6.8 -21.7  560.6  35.739256   9.576305
25   -7.3 -22.3  554.0  36.339581  11.110125
26  -11.3 -28.3  517.0  36.850556  17.973217
27  -12.1 -34.1  500.0  36.373067  21.000000
28  -13.7 -35.6  478.3  40.703194  23.500000
29  -15.1 -37.1  459.5  48.497423  28.000000

Iowa State

T    Td       p          u          v
0     NaN   NaN  1000.0        NaN        NaN
1    13.8  12.5   972.0  -4.500000   7.794229
2    13.8  12.6   970.0        NaN        NaN
3     NaN   NaN   943.7 -11.410693  24.470310
4    12.0  12.0   935.0        NaN        NaN
5    13.8  13.8   927.0        NaN        NaN
6    13.6  13.6   925.0  -6.424983  36.437887
7    13.8  13.8   915.0        NaN        NaN
8     NaN   NaN   908.3  13.458590  50.228143
9    16.2  16.2   904.0        NaN        NaN
10   16.8  16.8   890.0        NaN        NaN
11    NaN   NaN   876.4  20.708295  44.409082
12   15.8  15.8   850.0  29.252398  41.776754
13   15.4  15.4   829.0        NaN        NaN
14    NaN   NaN   815.8  26.997080  32.173867
15    NaN   NaN   786.6  25.068717  29.875733
16   13.0  13.0   783.0        NaN        NaN
17   11.4  11.4   768.0        NaN        NaN
18    NaN   NaN   758.3  23.783142  28.343644
19    9.8   9.8   736.0        NaN        NaN
20    NaN   NaN   730.9  23.140354  27.577600
21    3.0 -10.0   705.0        NaN        NaN
22    2.8 -11.2   700.0  25.980762  15.000000
23    2.4 -12.6   692.0        NaN        NaN
24    NaN   NaN   679.5  27.189234  12.678548
25    1.2 -11.8   664.0        NaN        NaN
26   -0.9 -14.9   640.0        NaN        NaN
27   -2.5 -17.5   621.0        NaN        NaN
28    NaN   NaN   605.7  25.376618  11.833311
29    NaN   NaN   560.3  35.739256   9.576305

IA State Raw Download

station,validUTC,levelcode,pressure_mb,height_m,tmpc,dwpc,drct,speed_kts,bearing,range_sm
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,9,972.0,362.0,13.8,12.5,150.0,9,0.0,0.0
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,4,1000.0,122.0,M,M,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,970.0,379.0,13.8,12.6,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,6,943.7,609.0,M,M,155.0,27,331.0,0.0
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,935.0,686.0,12.0,12.0,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,927.0,758.0,13.8,13.8,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,4,925.0,761.0,13.6,13.6,170.0,37,337.0,0.0
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,915.0,852.0,13.8,13.8,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,6,908.3,914.0,M,M,195.0,52,347.0,0.0
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,904.0,954.0,16.2,16.2,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,890.0,1086.0,16.8,16.8,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,6,876.4,1219.0,M,M,205.0,49,3.0,1.0
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,4,850.0,1482.0,15.8,15.8,215.0,51,11.0,2.0
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,829.0,1693.0,15.4,15.4,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,6,815.8,1828.0,M,M,220.0,42,18.0,3.0
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,6,786.6,2133.0,M,M,220.0,39,22.0,3.0
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,783.0,2172.0,13.0,13.0,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,768.0,2333.0,11.4,11.4,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,6,758.3,2438.0,M,M,220.0,37,24.0,4.0
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,736.0,2686.0,9.8,9.8,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,6,730.9,2743.0,M,M,220.0,36,26.0,5.0
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,705.0,3037.0,3.0,-10.0,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,4,700.0,3113.0,2.8,-11.2,240.0,30,29.0,5.0
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,692.0,3206.0,2.4,-12.6,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,6,679.5,3352.0,M,M,245.0,30,31.0,5.0
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,664.0,3538.0,1.2,-11.8,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,640.0,3832.0,-0.9,-14.9,M,M,M,M
KOUN,2010-05-10 12:00:00,5,621.0,4071.0,-2.5,-17.5,M,M,M,M

[dopplershift]

Wyoming. 🙄

Any thoughts @akrherz?

[akrherz]

Hey, my data is perfect, what is being alleged here? :) My upstream is of two sources

1. http://rucsoundings.noaa.gov
2. My GEMPAK upper air files, which came from NSSL many many moons ago.

I should be able to dig at this later today and see what's up.

[akrherz]

Eh, I am unsure what to say, my processing of what is provided by the rucsoundings service appears to be accurate. Do you have a contact at Wyoming, who perhaps could explain why their data is better?

[jrleeman]

I think what I'm most confused about is where all of the partially complete levels are coming from?

[kgoebber]

I've run into this issue with using data from FSL (https://esrl.noaa.gov/raobs/). It appears that it is the raw combination of TTAA (mandatory levels), TTBB (significant temperature levels), and PPBB (significant wind levels) data. My guess would be that Wyoming is interpolating to obtain their values at all of the levels.

[dopplershift]

Oh that's right! Our asinine sounding system has different significant levels for winds and temperature.

[jrleeman]

One day we'll just get all of the time series data and stop this "significant level" rubbish I hope.

[dopplershift]

That's the "promise" of BUFR.