Announcement 2008-02-08 c

Archiving of Aberporth high-resolution radiosonde data resumed by the BADC
The closest radiosonde launch site to the Aberystwyth MST radar facility is at Aberporth airport, approximately 45 km to the SW. The high resolution (2 s) data were archived by the British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC) for the period April 1990 - June 2001. The sondes tended to be launched several times daily (often at 05, 11, 17, and 23 UT), albeit on weekdays only. This site is not an official part of the Met Office radiosonde network. Moreover, the Met Office's requirement for radiosonde data from Aberporth has considerably reduced owing to the availability of wind-profile data from the MST Radar at Aberystwyth.

There was a gap between June 2000 and June 2007 (with the exception of two dates in 2006) when no high-resolution radiosonde data from Aberporth were received by the BADC. During this time, the closest radiosonde station was at Camborne, approximately 270 km to the south. However, high-resolution data from Aberporth are once again being made available. The archive tends to be updated once every two months.

The new data have already proved to be invaluable for determining the altitude offset introduced by the new MST Radar control and data acquisition system - click here for more details. Radiosondes from Aberporth tend to pass close to the MST radar site at mid-tropospheric altitudes - see, e.g. Thomas et al. (1997) for more details.