{"id":60767,"date":"2024-09-06T19:51:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T19:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=60767"},"modified":"2024-09-09T03:07:58","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T03:07:58","slug":"comparing-nucaps-and-radiosonde-profiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/60767","title":{"rendered":"Comparing NUCAPS and radiosonde profiles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Rawinsonde at 0000 UTC 7 September 2024 (Click to enlarge); This balloon was released by your blogger!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The radiosonde profile from the balloon launch just before 0000 UTC 7 September, above, (imagery from the Wyoming Sounding site<\/a>), shows a very moist airmass, with saturation from the surface up to 400 hPa, and relative dryess above that level. Total Precipitable Water was 63 mm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NOAA-20, NOAA-21 and Metop-C all provide NUCAPS (NOAA-Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System) profiles. The Metop-C overpasses near American Samoa at 1842 UTC on 6 September, shown below, include a series of four green points (that is, points where the infrared retrieval converged to a solution) in the westernmost column of profiles just east of the Samoan Islands. The NUCAPS profile below is similar to the observation from Tutuila: very moist (this one had a Precipitable Water value of more than 2″), and a dry region above 400 hPa. NUCAPS profiles can give useful thermodynamic information in regions where conventional data are missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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NUCAPS Sounding Availability, 1842 UTC on 6 September 2024 (Click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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NUCAPS Profiles at 14 S, 168 W, 1954 UTC on 6 September 2024 (Click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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At 0000 UTC on 9 September, the upper-air sounding, below (source<\/a>), shows a much drier atmosphere. Note, for example, that Total Precipitable Water is 45.7mm on 9 September compared to 63mm on the 7th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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0000 UTC Rawinsonde at Pago Pago, American Samoa, 9 September 2024 (Click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The NUCAPS profile (from Metop-C), at 2054 UTC on 8 September, below, centered on Tutuila (the island on which Pago Pago sits) shows structures that are similar to the rawindsonde above, namely relatively moist from 500-300 mb with dryer air above and below. It is always important to remember that NUCAPS moisture resolution is about 4-6 layers in the troposphere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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NUCAPS profile over Pago Pago, 2053 UTC on 8 September 2024 (Click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The radiosonde profile from the balloon launch just before 0000 UTC 7 September, above, (imagery from the Wyoming Sounding site), shows a very moist airmass, with saturation from the surface up to 400 hPa, and relative dryess above that level. Total Precipitable Water was 63 mm. NOAA-20, NOAA-21 and Metop-C all provide NUCAPS (NOAA-Unique Combined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":60772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,58,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-interpretation","category-metop","category-nucaps"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60767"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60792,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60767\/revisions\/60792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}