Weather Balloon Sounding Sonification

Written by Paul Tisch

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Click anywhere outside the graph to start audio, click anywhere to stop audio.
Press C to show or hide CAPE and CIN.
Press U or W then move mouse to change temperature units or wind units, respectively.
Press P to change PWAT units.






About Soundings:

Here is a good introduction to reading "skew-T log-p" charts, also known as soundings. These graphs are generated from data gathered from weather balloons that are released twice daily at stations all around the globe. Attached to the balloons are small weather stations that record pressure, altitude, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and wind direction, and send the data back to the station from which it was released. (More info here on radiosondes.)

How to read the graph:

The red line represents Air Temperature (also known as Environmental Air Temperature or Ambient Air Temperature).

The green line represents Dewpoint Temperature, or the temperature at which water in the air condenses and becomes liquid (clouds).

The yellow dashed line represents parcel temperature. Here is an explanation of parcel theory. When the parcel temperature is greater than the air temperature, the atmosphere is unstable and has positive CAPE (discussed below). In this scenario, the parcel will buoyantly rise until the parcel temperature again falls below the environmental temperature.

Here is information on reading hodographs. Hodographs are generated from the wind data provided in the sounding and show both wind speed and direction. Different hodograph shapes can indicate the possibility for different kinds of weather (for example, curly hodographs can indicate the potential for supercells and tornadoes).

Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) and Convective Inhibition (CIN) represent positive and negative potential energy, or buoyancy, in the atmosphere, respectively. Large CAPE values (>1000 J/kg) indicate an atmosphere conducive to thunderstorm production. However, a parcel of air must be lifted past a layer of CIN to become buoyant in a layer of CAPE. Here is more info on CAPE and CIN.

Please note that this website initially used Python, including the modules Flask, Siphon, and Metpy which allowed the user to select any station on any date. However, I am running my site using Hostgator.com which doesn't allow me to install these modules on the site...something I wish I found out before I paid for their service. If you know how to use Flask and would like the code, please email me at paul.l.tisch@gmail.com.



Data from the University of Wyoming
Based on "D3 Skew-T" by Ryan Sobash and "X Value Mouseover Sonification" by Stephen Taylor