Sounding Lab

Lab Overview:

The purpose of this lab is to give you experience in preparing and launching a sounding and analyzing the collected data.  Our sounding system is very similar to what is used by the NWS.

We will discuss how the sounding system works in class and during the launch.  What follows are the instructions for the data analysis.

Instructions:

Download the closest (in time and space) sounding data in text format from the RAOB network.  Import this data into an Excel spreadsheet.

Data Quality Control:

1.  Plot the temperature, dew point, wind speed, and wind direction data in excel.  Plot the thermodynamic data on one plot and the wind data on another.  (LSC SOUNDING ONLY)

2.  Examine the data.  Flag any bad data that you may see and remove it in a manner that does not compromise the integrity of the existing data.  Document the bad data that you removed. (LSC SOUNDING ONLY)

3.  Now smooth the remaining data.  I would suggest using a running mean filter.  Choose a filter that removes most all of the noise yet retains the physical structures present in the data.  Plot the smoothed and unsmoothed data for comparision. (LSC SOUNDING ONLY)

Analysis:

1.  calculate and plot the ascent rate of the balloon.  Use the sounding data to physically explain the ascent rate variation that you observe. (LSC SOUNDING ONLY)

2.  Plot the ground relative track of the balloon position.  How far away from LSC did it travel?  Exactly where was the balloon when we stopped tracking it?  Use Google Earth to answer this question.  (LSC SOUNDING ONLY)

3.  Now plot vertical profiles of T, Tv, q, and qv.  Based on these plots, identify any unique layers of air in and just above the boundary layer and physically explain what they are.  (LSC SOUNDING ONLY)

4.  Plot the LSC and upstream sounding on a skew-T.  Describe and explain the similarities and differences between the two soundings.