Load Data Instructions

This app can load soundings from text files obtained from the University of Wyoming Upper Air Data website.

1.     Go to the sounding website: http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html

2.     Choose options from the drop-down lists at the top, as follows:

á       Region: Your choice

á       Type of plot: choose ÒText: ListÓ

á       Year: Your choice

á       Month: Your choice

á       From/To: Your choice, but ÒFromÓ and ÒToÓ must be the same.

á       Station Number: Selected when you click on the map

3.     Click on a location on the selected regional map. A text file will open in a new window or tab. It will look something like this:

71934 YSM Fort Smith Observations at 12Z 18 Apr 2013

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   PRES   HGHT   TEMP   DWPT   RELH   MIXR   DRCT   SKNT   THTA   THTE   THTV

    hPa     m      C      C      %    g/kg    deg   knot     K      K      K

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 1001.0    203   -8.1  -14.1     62   1.29     20      2  265.0  268.6  265.2

 1000.0    213   -8.1  -17.1     48   1.01     50      7  265.1  267.9  265.2

  988.2    305   -8.8  -16.5     53   1.07     80     17  265.3  268.4  265.5

  971.0    441   -9.7  -15.7     62   1.17     93     21  265.7  269.0  265.9

  962.0    513   -9.1  -16.1     57   1.14    100     22  267.0  270.2  267.2

                                    .

                                    .

                                    .

    7.9  31880  -41.7  -77.7      1   0.12    259     55  922.9  924.5  922.9

    7.4  32309  -38.2  -75.7      1   0.18    270     62  953.8  956.2  953.9

    7.1  32614  -35.7  -74.3      1   0.23    265     48  976.2  979.4  976.4

    7.0  32710  -34.9  -73.9      1   0.25    255     52  983.4  986.9  983.5

    6.8  32913  -34.1  -73.1      1   0.29                994.9  999.0  995.1

 

 

Station information and sounding indices

                   Station identifier: YSM

                             Station number: 71934

                           Observation time: 130418/1200

                                    .

                                    .

                                    .

              1000 hPa to 500 hPa thickness: 5157.00

Precipitable water [mm] for entire sounding: 4.89

Description of the data columns or sounding indices.

4.     Save the page as a text file in the same directory as the file Òskewt_v15.swfÓ (very important).

a.     Firefox: Either CTRL-S or File>Save Page AsÉCreate a sounding name with .txt suffix (for example, oak.txt) ÉSave.

b.     Internet Explorer: similar to above.

c.     Google Chrome: similar to above

5.     Edit the text file to:

a.     remove all the lines at the top of the file before the first dashed ( Ò-----Ò ) line

b.     remove all blank lines between the end of the data and the ÒStation information and sounding indicesÓ line.

The file will now look like this:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

   PRES   HGHT   TEMP   DWPT   RELH   MIXR   DRCT   SKNT   THTA   THTE   THTV

    hPa     m      C      C      %    g/kg    deg   knot     K      K      K

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 1001.0    203   -8.1  -14.1     62   1.29     20      2  265.0  268.6  265.2

 1000.0    213   -8.1  -17.1     48   1.01     50      7  265.1  267.9  265.2

  988.2    305   -8.8  -16.5     53   1.07     80     17  265.3  268.4  265.5

  971.0    441   -9.7  -15.7     62   1.17     93     21  265.7  269.0  265.9

  962.0    513   -9.1  -16.1     57   1.14    100     22  267.0  270.2  267.2

                                    .

                                    .

                                    .

    7.9  31880  -41.7  -77.7      1   0.12    259     55  922.9  924.5  922.9

    7.4  32309  -38.2  -75.7      1   0.18    270     62  953.8  956.2  953.9

    7.1  32614  -35.7  -74.3      1   0.23    265     48  976.2  979.4  976.4

    7.0  32710  -34.9  -73.9      1   0.25    255     52  983.4  986.9  983.5

    6.8  32913  -34.1  -73.1      1   0.29                994.9  999.0  995.1

Station information and sounding indices

                   Station identifier: YSM

                             Station number: 71934

                           Observation time: 130418/1200

                                    .

                                    .

                                    .

              1000 hPa to 500 hPa thickness: 5157.00

Precipitable water [mm] for entire sounding: 4.89

Description of the data columns or sounding indices.

6.     In the interactive Skew-T,

a.     click ÒLoad DataÓ

b.     enter the filename of the sounding text file (i.e., oak.txt)

c.     click ÒApplyÓ