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Met Office - metDB Data: RASS data


Brief description

Observations from Radio Acoustic Sounding Systems.

Observation frequency

Hourly observations from around 120 RASS stations distributed globally.

Delivery and ingest schedule

Data are extracted daily at around 00 UT for the previous day's coverage and delivered to the BADC at around 0200 UT.

Ingest scripts run at the BADC every 20 minutes, converting the incoming files to the self describing BADC-CSV format, but neither the processed or raw data are placed into archive until the following day.

Known problems

There are no known problems with these data.

Additional information

Parameter list

Each station report is a separate record in the file consisting of header information about the station and data section. The header section contains the following information:

Header ElementsDescription
locationlatitude and longitude
heightStation Height (m)
observation_stationWMO station ID
station_typeDetails of the station type according to WMO code table 002001
type_of_measuring_equipment Details of the type of equipment according to WMO code table 002003
type_of_antennaDetails of the type of antenna according to WMO code table 002101
beamwidthBeamwidth (degrees)
mean_frequencyMean frequency (Hz)
range_gate_lengthLength of range gates (m)
mean_speed_estimationMean speed estimation WMO code table 025020
wind_computation_enhancementwmo code table 025021
rass_computation_correctionwmo code table 025093
averaging_time_periodTime period for averaging (minutes)
pressure_at_mean_sea_levelMean sea level pressure at station (Pa)

The table below provides the list of available parameters in the column order that they appear in the BADC-CSV files in the archive.

Column numberParameterUnit
1Heightm
2Virtual temperatureK
3Virtual temperature quality control information1
4Wind w componentm/s
5Vertical wind quality control information1
6Signa to noise ratioDB