THE NERC MST RADAR FACILITY AT ABERYSTWYTH
This page only gives details about the latest data products. Follow this link to find out more about earlier, deprecated versions of MST radar data products.
Follow the file format links below for fuller details about the file contents.
Follow this link to find out about the data locations.
PRIMARY DATA PRODUCTSMST radar (version 4) Cardinal data files - file format page:
These contain altitude profiles (from approximately 2 - 20 km at 150 m intervals) of the eastward, northward and upward components of the wind velocity and the following radar return parameters: vertical beam signal power, aspect sensitivity, spectral width and beam-broadening corrected spectral width. All data have been mapped onto a single altitude grid. The profiles are separated at intervals of a few minutes in time. A radar-derived tropopause altitude and sharpness is given for each set of profiles. These files are recommended for most purposes.
MST radar radial data files - file format page:
These contain the radar return parameters (noise power, signal power, Doppler shift and spectral width) from which the Cartesian and Cardinal data are derived. The data are recorded in the same sequence as the observations were made - as a series of observations in different beam pointing directions.
AUXILLIARY DATA PRODUCTS
Surface meteorological data files: - file format page
These contain surface measurements of temperature, pressure, humidity, rainfall, and incoming solar radiation at 10 minute intervals.
Surface wind data files - file format page:
These contain measurements of the eastward and northward components of the wind, and the minimum and maximum gust speed factors, measured from a 10 m tower. The data are recorded at 1 minute intervals.
Laser ceilometer cloud base data files - file format page:
These contain measurements of the cloud base altitudes for up to three cloud layers. The data are recorded at 1 minute intervals.
Sky-camera image files - file format page:
These contain individual jpg images of the sky conditions above the radar site recorded at 1 minute intervals.
FMCW cloud radar backscatter data files - file format page:
These contain altitude profiles of 78 GHz radar backscatter.
Met Office boundary-layer wind-profiler data files - file format page:
These contain measurements of horizontal wind speed and direction and the following radar return parameters: the radial velocities and signal-to-noise ratios along the 3 beam pointing directions. Observations are made in a low-mode, covering the approximate altitude range 0.1 - 2.0 km at 100 m intervals, and a high-mode, covering the approximate altitude range 0.2 - 8.0 km at 200 m intervals. The data for both modes represent 30 minute consensus averages.
Met Office GPS integrated water vapour data files - file format page:
These contain 1 hour averages of the integrated water vapour.
RAW MST RADAR DATA PRODUCTS
MST radar Doppler spectra files - file format page:
These contain the spectral data from which the radial data are derived.
MST radar I&Q files - file format page:
These contain the in-phase and quadrature components of the radar return signals (after coherent integration and pulse decoding have been applied) from which the Doppler spectra are derived. They are the lowest level MST radar data products and are only recorded upon request.