any crazy skew-t soundings today?

Matthew

Matthew

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Matthew
I'm working on some homework and comparing local skew-ts to metars/tafs/pireps and personal observations. I'm trying to see if I can correlate one to the others.

But, wx today is pretty boring around here.

Has anyone come across any charts today that show something out of the ordinary that could be used as a good learning exercise?
 
Try Memphis (MEM). The soundings forecast for 2000Z looks like fun. Not necessarily "crazy" but for today, probably worth a comparison.
 
I'll check it out. A meteorologist friend of mine is going to give me a quick lesson tomorrow and I'd like to have something more interesting to look at than what I found around here this morning.


Edit: yeah, things are popping around MEM right now. The METAR has been updated a couple times in the last 15-20 minutes.
 
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OK - Now, a couple of questions:

The balloon soundings are taken twice a day from many stations.

I understand that the info can be interpolated between stations to give temp/dewpoint traces.

On http://rucsoundings.noaa.gov/ I can generate plots for times outside the soundings.

So the generated plots are actually forecasts and not just interpolated from the latest soundings?
 
Thanks Scott. I expected that the sounding charts interpolated the raw data to get info for stations other than those that released balloons.


The second part of the question/answer took care of that. Since it's a forecast, the data comes from sources other than just the RAOBs.

I think I saw your video a week or two ago. I must have slept since then.
 
Matt,
When you figure out how to read those things, perhaps you can teach me :)
 
ja_user said:
Matt,
When you figure out how to read those things, perhaps you can teach me :)
Click to expand...

That might be axing for trouble!

I know a couple guys in the glider club use them to get an idea of thermal heights and intensity potentials. But there is so much more you can get out of them. I'll never end up an expert, they are another tool in the box. Especially when you start getting lower freezing levels.
 
Matthew said:
OK - Now, a couple of questions:

The balloon soundings are taken twice a day from many stations.

I understand that the info can be interpolated between stations to give temp/dewpoint
Click to expand...
Well, only in the same sense that you can take a group of METAR and interpolate them for other locations.

To some degree the chart is already an interpolation. The "40" in OP40 means 40 sq kilometers. I don't think this is exactly right but there is some level of averaging over that area. That's one of the reason Scott recommends using the OP20 for coastal and mountain areas -a smaller area means a tighter sampling.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Well, only in the same sense that you can take a group of METAR and interpolate them for other locations.

To some degree the chart is already an interpolation. The "40" in OP40 means 40 sq kilometers. I don't think this is exactly right but there is some level of averaging over that area. That's one of the reason Scott recommends using the OP20 for coastal and mountain areas -a smaller area means a tighter sampling.
Click to expand...

Yeah - I saw the Op40 covers much more area than the Op20. Somehow I haven't been able to generate an Op20 (either PC or internet connection) Right now I'm in "learning mode", not yet to "need the highest resolution mode".
 
I spent a couple hours with a buddy of mine - a retired NWS meteorologist. He gave me a couple of blank charts he still had, from when he had to hand draw them.
 
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