I posted this elsewhere. Thought I would post it here too.
I have been looking to see how many dropsondes from recon that might have gotten into the 18Z GFS run. I think maybe 6 sondes from the NOAA G-IV mission got into the 18Z GFS and maybe 29 will be in 0Z GFS later tonight.
In trying to figure it out, I spotted this message from yesterday (see "SPECIAL SOUNDINGS IN SUPPORT OF TD 9"):
NOUS42 KWNO 231356
ADMSDM
SENIOR DUTY METEOROLOGIST NWS ADMINISTRATIVE MESSAGE
NWS NCEP CENTRAL OPERATIONS COLLEGE PARK MD
1354Z FRI SEP 23 2022
The 12Z NCEP model production suite is currently running on time.
12Z NAM RAOB RECAP...
71109/YZT - Purged temp/moisture 660-622mb...wet bulb effect
70026/BRW - 10142
70200/OME - 10142
70361/YAK - Short to 661mb
72214/TAE - 10148
72469/DNR - 10159
76595/CUN - 10142
78970/POS - 10142
SPECIAL SOUNDINGS IN SUPPORT OF TD 9...
Special 06Z/18Z soundings have been requested starting ASAP for:
TAE, JAX, TBW, MFL, EYW.
Special 06Z/18Z soundings have been requested starting 18Z
Saturday for:
-All Eastern Region sites
-All Southern Region sites, excluding EPZ and ABQ
-The following Central Region sites: BIS, UNR, ABR, LBF, OAX,
DDC, TOP, SGF, ILX, DVN, MPX, INL, GRB
CRITICAL WEATHER DAY STATUS...
CWD is not currently in effect. However, NCEP continues to
closely monitor and assess the need for CWD with Hurricane Fiona
moving into Atlantic Canada this weekend and TD Nine possibly
tracking into the southeastern Gulf of Mexico early next week.
Gerhardt/SDM/NCO/NCEP
I explain on my site here how you can tell how many dropsondes got into a specific run of the GFS and that same section talks about that kind of message above that I was looking through:
http://tropicalatlantic.com/reconnaissa ... ing_systemDirect link to single message:
https://forecast.weather.gov/product.ph ... suedby=SDMLink to last 50 on one page:
https://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/status/messages/But it doesn't say from which storm the sondes were in. Or the agency. Or aircraft. Or even what basin.
This was from the 5pm EDT Saturday NHC discussion on Ian:
Hopefully, data collected from special radiosonde releases and a
NOAA G-IV flight this evening will help better resolve the steering
flow around Ian and the deep-layer trough that is forecast to be
over the eastern U.S. early next week.
I also don't know if those got into the 18Z GFS. Don't know how long they take to do and report.
From this page:
https://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/prodstat/I see that the 18Z GFS average start time for "DATA DUMP AND PREP" is 20:48:22 and end time is 20:58:50. I don't know, but that might be when the sondes need to be in there by perhaps. I don't know. I don't know if sondes after then could get in.
22 sondes were in it for the latest run at 18Z. I don't know how many from the NOAA G-IV. Note, this is for all recon. If there are multiple missions, it is from them all. If there is a NOAA P-3 dropping sondes and the NOAA G-IV, it would be combined from both of them. Air Force too. Multiple storms with missions dropping sondes, then all of those combined. If they had missions dropping sondes in the Atlantic and East Pacific, then again all combined.
For GFS model runs today:
00Z: 7 sondes
06Z: 2 sondes
12Z: 15 sondes
18Z: 22 sondes (most recent run as of posting)
NOAA P-3 dropped 15 sondes from 9:27Z to 12:35Z.
Air Force recon dropped 16 sondes from 16:18Z to 20:17Z.
NOAA G-IV dropped 35 sondes from 18:31Z to 00:53Z.
The mission has completed.
I would assume that all the NOAA P-3 sondes got into 12Z run since it would have started well after that was done.
Average end time for "DATA DUMP AND PREP" for 12Z GFS is 14:55:55. "84-120hr PRODUCTS", average end time is 16:15:26, so even if sondes could be added after prep part, Air Force mission started after. Those times are launch times, takes longer to reach surface, transmit to the plane and eventually get transmitted in a message. Time to reach the surface for some of the NOAA G-IV sondes was around 15 minutes since the jet is so high up, around 47,000 feet.
Meaning, the NOAA P-3 likely had all 15 sondes in the 12Z run. That works out well, no other missions around then. Fiona's missions were done last night and last sonde was launched at 3:06Z. (two from Fiona might be what got into 06Z)
16 Air Force sondes might have all got into the 18Z GFS. Last sonde for that mission landed at 20:20Z. It was transmitted at 20:22Z. And again, 18Z GFS prep time starts at 20:48:22Z. If so, and I don't know of any other sondes, including non NHC tasked missions, that got in there.
You have to check non-tasked missions too. Last one was a NOAA training mission Friday that launched 7 sondes as it traveled from Lakeland, Florida to Aruba. So I would assume those went into the GFS too when they could.
22 (sondes into the 18Z GFS) - 16 (sondes in Air Force mission) = 6
I would assume that only 6 sondes from the NOAA G-IV got in so far. That would be from north and northeast of the storm. I would assume that:
35 (total sondes in NOAA G-IV mission) - 6 (sondes likely in 18 GFS) = 29
29 sondes will be in the 0Z Sunday GFS. In the image below, it flew down toward the storm in the eastern route and came back the western route. A lot of HDOB were not reported early on, that's why some tracking is missing.
Dropsonde 7 is just north of where the HDOBS start back. So along the path of the rest of the HDOBS back to Lakeland, FL, there are sonde icons which are where the rest of the sondes are that should go into the 0Z GFS.
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/0dl1oQD.jpg)