RAW Upper Air Data

[Steven Howell]

Is there anywhere online that I could get RAW upper air data from weather balloons, without having to interface with the page and select sites, times, etc? I would just like to pull raw data if I setup a parameter for a certain time and location I was looking for. I am working on writing an application to ingest that data to my computer and then massage the data into some other product.

 

[rdale]

http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html

 

[David C Watson]

My job in the military supports doing that, well before it went strictly to computer data received via satellite from the Navy, we would send up weather balloons to collect upper level wind data in support of the personnel that had to fire the artillery cannons in Iraq My job was originally a 13W (Field Artillery Meteorological Crew Member) but 13S (Survey) combined with my MOS so now I'm a 13T (Field Artillery Meteorological/Survey Crew Member)

 

[David C Watson]

Of course I'm going to be getting out of service soon cause my wife is going to be having our first child together soon (in May) )) and my time is over so I'm going to be getting out in a couple of weeks or so and go back to OK where I live (in Yukon,OK)

 

[Steven Howell]

thanks rob, I checked that out, but is there anywhere that I could get specific sites, without having to click in the browser, like a place that listed all of the data, for all sites, for different times? may not be a place, but was just curious.

 

[Steven Howell]

Of course I'm going to be getting out of service soon cause my wife is going to be having our first child together soon (in May) )) and my time is over so I'm going to be getting out in a couple of weeks or so and go back to OK where I live (in Yukon,OK)

Good luck with the baby David, my daughter just turned 15 months, so its quite an experience!

 

[rdale]

thanks rob, I checked that out, but is there anywhere that I could get specific sites, without having to click in the browser, like a place that listed all of the data, for all sites, for different times? may not be a place, but was just curious.

I'm not sure I follow... Describe it a little better for me.

 

[Steven Howell]

If you go to the website yourself, you can click on the different stations, and choose which one you want. What I am curious about, is there a location that has ALL of the station locations, their data, and different reporting times? like an archive, or something like that? I want to parse the RAW data, and then design the algorithms I need in software to give me the results I want. Sort of like the GREarth program, but different. I dont want a map per se, but I have something else in mind, on smaller scales. I dont want to have to manually go in and select sites, I want to write a program routine in my development environment, that will go out to the location, and look for the RAW data at a given time in the program, and ingest that RAW data so that I can take it apart and use the data for what I want to do with it.

Does that make sense?

Thinking further on this. I needed to add, I dont want to do the selection manually, I want the program I write, when I select a command from my front panel, to go out and execute the command and look for the data online and then ingest that into my computer.

 

[rdale]

I think that's what this does, which is why I'm confused

For example I clicked a site and it took me to http://weather.uwyo.edu/cgi-bin/sou...AR=2011&MONTH=03&FROM=1812&TO=1812&STNM=71836

I can change the year, month, date/time and station number (or all of the above) to get anything from their archive for any site.

 

[Steven Howell]

Ok, I understand what you are saying and I agree. I guess what I would like to know. If I were to program in a link and save it to my application, would that link change, based upon the product time, or would it take me to the data for the same product each time? Is it a static URL, or is it dynamic, based upon the product time and type? Thats what I need to determine.

 

[rdale]

I hate to repeat myself but I just don't understand your question... Here is the URL:

sounding?region=naconf&TYPE=TEXT%3ALIST&YEAR=2011&MONTH=03&FROM=1812&TO=1812&STNM=71836

If you request that 1000 times, it will always show you the ob for UPA site 71836, 03/18/2011 at 12Z.

If you change the year to 2010, the month to 05, and the date to 0300, and site to 72539 then every time you request it will show the 05/03/2010 00Z ob for 72539.

 

[Steven Howell]

Rob,

Ok I see why you dont understand my question, and I appreciate you trying to help.

What I am asking, is the URL from 12Z 3/18/2011 for station xyz, going to always be that address? What about 18Z 3/18/2011 for xyz? Do you see my point? I notice that there is a specific URL for that location. If I assign that URL in my program, and then that point is passed tense, I cant draw current data, that is an old data point.

 

[Tim Supinie]

Well, what that's really doing is it's calling a script ("sounding") and passing parameters to it ("region" is set to "naconf", "TYPE" is set to "TEXT%3ALIST", and so on) that goes and finds the data for the sounding in an archive somewhere. So what I would assume would happen if you tried to get an 18Z sounding from a place that didn't launch an 18Z sounding is it would print out some kind of error message (probably predictable) that your program could recognize as "missing data" or something. The same, if for some reason, a RAOB point changes identifiers. It would probably print out some kind of error message when attempting to pull data newer or older than what it has available in the archive.

Really, the only way to do it is to experiment with it by yourself. The University of Wyoming site is good, but their server is not very capable, so if you pull a bunch of files from there at the same time, some of them may come up blank, and you'll have to redo them. And some sites don't like repeated connections pulling large amounts of data, so keep that in mind. Plymouth State ( http://vortex.plymouth.edu ), for example, has a cap on the number of soundings you can pull in a day.

Does that help?

 

[rdale]

What I am asking, is the URL from 12Z 3/18/2011 for station xyz, going to always be that address?

Yes.

sounding?region=naconf&TYPE=TEXT%3ALIST&YEAR=2011& MONTH=03&FROM=1812&TO=1812&STNM=71836

What about 18Z 3/18/2011 for xyz?

Then you would use:

sounding?region=naconf&TYPE=TEXT%3ALIST&YEAR=2011& MONTH=03&FROM=1818&TO=1818&STNM=71836

instead. That's what I'm trying to say - modify the URL for the date/month/year/station as needed.

If I assign that URL in my program, and then that point is passed tense, I cant draw current data, that is an old data point.

For example right now, your program would figure out that the 00Z sounding from 03/19/2011 is current, and request

sounding?region=naconf&TYPE=TEXT%3ALIST&YEAR=2011& MONTH=03&FROM=1900&TO=1900&STNM=71836

 

[Steven Howell]

AHHHH....now I get it. Thanks Rob, and Tim. That gives me what I need. Now I just need to sit down and figure out my flow chart and what I want to do. Sorry it took me so long. I am not an HTML or a text programmer.