{"id":63423,"date":"2025-03-11T21:13:23","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T21:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=63423"},"modified":"2025-03-11T21:13:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T21:13:23","slug":"when-upper-air-soundings-are-missing-nucaps-can-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/63423","title":{"rendered":"When upper air soundings are missing: NUCAPS can help"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Several recent notices have announced that radiosonde-carrying balloon launches to measure the temperature and moisture (and winds) in the atmosphere are suspended due to personnel shortages. There are products available to mitigate this data shortage. N<\/span><\/strong>OAA-U<\/span><\/strong>nique C<\/span><\/strong>ombined A<\/span><\/strong>tmospheric P<\/span><\/strong>rocessing S<\/span><\/strong>ystem (NUCAPS<\/span><\/strong>) profiles (training video here<\/a>) use data from CrIS\/ATMS (on NOAA-20\/NOAA-21) and IASI\/AMSU\/MHS (on Metop-C) to create thermodynamic profiles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where can these data be accessed? For National Weather Service WFOs, they are available in AWIPS under the ‘Satellite’ tab (and then ‘JPSS Polar’); then look at ‘NUCAPS Sounding Availability’, shown below, and ‘Gridded NUCAPS’. When NUCAPS Sounding Availability is on your screen, you can profiles by clicking on the points. For example, the Sounding Availability plot below shows two different profile locations in far southern coastal Maine; profiles at these two points are shown below as well. The low-level warming one might expect during the day is captured well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
NUCAPS Sounding Availability over the northeast USA, 1415 UTC on 11 March 2025; this plot shows multiple overpasses (Click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Nsharp Sounding Display for two NUCAPS Profiles near 43.5 N, 70.4 W, 1644 and 1737 UTC on 11 March 2025 (Click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Gridded NUCAPS fields show values that have been interpolated to a pressure level on a grid. In the animation of 850-mb temperature plotted in AWIPS and shown below, showing a combination of MetopC, NOAA-20 and NOAA-21 fields, the 0o<\/sup>C isotherm is progressing northward through Maine in the 11 hours shown. The number of observations is far greater than the number of radiosondes that would have launched in this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
850-mb Temperatures from gridded NUCAPS fields, 0600-1730 UTC on 11 March 2025. The black contour highlights 32 F\/0 C (Click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gridded NUCAPS fields are also available online<\/a>. The images below show values over the Pacific Ocean (where radiosondes are routinely absent), and they show a stable and dry region arcing toward the Pacific Northwest from the tropics. Perhaps the cloudband in about the same location in the nightmicrophysics RGB (from the CSPPGeosphere site) is related to this NUCAPS-observed feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Gridded NUCAPS estimates of 850-700 mb lapse rate and 700-mb Relative Humidity, 1022 UTC on 11 March 2025 (left) and GOES-18 Night Microphysics RGB at the same time (right) (Click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Use gridded NUCAPS when (that is, always!) you need supplemental observations of the troposphere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several recent notices have announced that radiosonde-carrying balloon launches to measure the temperature and moisture (and winds) in the atmosphere are suspended due to personnel shortages. There are products available to mitigate this data shortage. NOAA-Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System (NUCAPS) profiles (training video here) use data from CrIS\/ATMS (on NOAA-20\/NOAA-21) and IASI\/AMSU\/MHS (on Metop-C) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":63438,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114,58,78,131,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-goes-18","category-metop","category-noaa-20","category-noaa-21","category-nucaps"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63423","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=63423"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63440,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63423\/revisions\/63440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}