Improved estimates of winds at standard heights generated from winds recorded at standard pressure levels

Automatic upper air observing and recording equipment at all weather stations will be operational in the future. Electronic computers will process the detailed output of the automatic stations and will produce the requisite for publication and archiving. From 1958 to 1964 upper wind data routinely were placed on punched cards in two formats--one format for constant pressure level data, the second format for constant height data. Interim results of this study indicated that computers can extract data from the constant pressure levels to produce data for the constant height levels with three exceptions. These exceptions were at the friction layer, at the maximum wind layer and at the terminal point of the sounding. Therefore, preparation of the second format deck was discontinued in January 1965. This saves cost of punching, editing, and quality control.

This last report indicates that for general purposes in electronic processing of constant pressure data, wind data need not be prepared for the constant height data for the terminal point of the sounding. The layer of maximum wind presents no problem. Only in the friction layer is there inadequate extraction of information. The last can only be resolved by detailed study of the original data.