NAWDEX - North Atlantic Waveguide and Downstream Impact Experiment

h1. OVERVIEW

List of NAWDEX radiosondes from all sources. Requested future sondes are plain text, confirmed launches are *bold*, failed launches are -striked-.

| IOP | Time period | Station| Nr Sondes| Release times| Aims|

| 1 | 16-17/09 | Lerwick    | 24 EUMETNET | 16/09: *18*, *21* UTC; 17/09: *03*, *06*, *09* UTC | |

|   |          | Castor Bay |             | 16/09: *18*, *21* UTC; 17/09: *03*, *06*, *09* UTC | |

|   |          | Torshavn   |             | 16/09: *18*, *21* UTC; 17/09: *03*, *06*, *09*, *15*, *18* UTC | |

|   |          | Keflavik   |             | 16/09: *21* UTC; 17/09: *03*, *06*, *09*, *15*, *18*, *21* UTC | |

| 2 | 21-22/09 | Ittoqqortoormiit | 4 EUMETNET | 21/09: *15*, *18*, *21* UTC; 22/09: *03* UTC | |

|   |          | Keflavik         | 2 IMO      | 21/09: *18*, *21* UTC | |

|   |          | Keflavik         | 1 DLR      | 21/09: *15* UTC | |

| 3 | 23-25/09 | Lerwick    | 17 EUMETNET | 24/09: *09*, *15*, *18*, *21* UTC; 25/09: *03* UTC | |

|   |          | Castor Bay |             | 24/09: *09*, *12*, *15*, *18*, *21* UTC; 25/09 *03* UTC | |

|   |          | Brest      |             | 25/09: -03-, -06-, -09-, -15-, -18-, -21- UTC | |

|   |          | Lerwick    | 7 UKMO      | 23/09: *21* UTC; 24/09: *03* UTC | |

|   |          | Castor Bay |             | 23/09: *09*, *12*, *15*, *18*, *21* | |

| 4 | 26-28/09 | Azores      | 21 EUMETNET | 27/09: 00 UTC | The Azores sondes and the ships (around the Azores) were requested because the region showed a large forecast sensitivity due to the positioning of tropical cyclone Lisa in this area and how it affected the midlatitude weather. Therefore the observations were intended to reduce uncertainty in the forecasts of tropical cyclone Karl's recurvature and in the North Atlantic and later interaction with a separate extratropical cyclone. |

|   |          | ASEU01      |             | 27/09: 06 UTC | |

|   |          | ASEU02      |             | 27/09: 06 UTC | |

|   |          | ASDE04      |             | 27/09: 06 UTC | |

|   |          | Torshavn    |             | 27/09: 03, 06, 09, 15, 18, 21 UTC |  |

|   |          | Egilsstadir |             | 27/09: 12 UTC | |

|   |          | Orland      |             | 27/09: 15, 18, 21 UTC; 28/09: 03, 06 UTC | |

|   |          | Stavanger   |             | 27/09: 15, 18, 21 UTC; 28/09: 03, 06 UTC | |

|   |          | Keflavik    | 2 IMO       | 27/09: 03, 18 UTC | |

|   |          | Keflavik    | 5 DLR       | 27/09: 06, 09, 15, 21 UTC; 28/09: 06 UTC | |

|   |          | Castor Bay  | 9 UKMO      | 26/09: *15*, *18*, *21* UTC | |

|   |          | Lerwick     |             | 27/09: 03, 06, 09, 15, 18, 21 UTC | |

Total Confirmed Launches

EUMETNET: 39

IMO: 4

DLR: 6

UKMO: 10

h1. OTHER

* *Keflavik*: 60 sondes available from Icelandic Met Office (contact person: Nína Petersen) [covering 00, 03, 12 and 18 UTC releases in coordination with DLR]

* *Keflavik*: 62 sondes available from DLR (contact person: Martina Bramberger) [covering 06, 09, 15 and 21 UTC releases in coordination with IMO]

* *France*: all sondes requested via EUMETNET, except for Paris (XX sondes by Météo France, requests will be organized by P. Arbogast and G. Rivière)

* *Norway*: 60 sondes available from Met Norway (contact person: Rich Moore)

* *UK*: 30 sondes available from UK Met Office (contact person: John Methven), and XX sondes from Capel Dewi (requests will be organized by Geraint Vaughan)

* *Canada*: 4xdaily regular launches from 6 stations throughout campaign period (contact person: Ron McTaggart-Cowan)

h1. EUMETNET OBSERVATIONS

EUMETNET is a grouping of 31 European National Meteorological Services that provides a framework to organise co-operative programmes between its Members in the various fields of basic meteorological activities. These activities include observing systems, data processing, basic forecasting products, research and development and training. EUMETNET's mission statement is.

The EUMETNET programme supports NAWDEX with the following extra-observations:

# 1)	Radiosondes from land stations within the European Network

# 2)	E-AMDAR observations

# 3)	E-ASAP-radiosoundings from commercial ships

All observation types perform operational (regular) observations. During the NAWDEX observation period the NAWDEX team can activate the observation types and ask for increased observation frequency. This manual explains the procedure to activate them.

The *point of contact* responsible for the coordination of all observations by the EUMETNET Observations Programme Management is

> Sabine Hafner

> EUMETNET Observations Programme Management

> Operations and Projects Manager

> Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD)

> email: sabine.hafner[at]dwd.de

The available funding covers 65 k€ (50k€ for additional radiosoundings and 15 k€ for AMDAR data. Depending on the price per sonde which varies from country to country we envisage 200-250 additional soundings. During the NAWDEX period we will regularly get a status report on our balance by Sabine Hafner.

All requests have to be sent from the email-address: *sounding[at] nawdex.org* to the respective points of contacts. Contacts are provided by Andreas Schäfler. Below you find templates to each Observation type. The template-text has to be copied to the body of the request-email (NO ATTACHMENT!).

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h2. RADIOSONDES

Andreas provides a table of the available radiosonde stations that NAWDEX can access within the European Radiosonde Network and the affiliation to the respective national weather service for each station. All regular observation intervals and the possible additional sounding release times are listed in the table. 

For NAWDEX we can choose a subset of the list of stations depending on our needs. The requests are send with the "Radiosonde-Email-Template":https://internal.wavestoweather.de/nawdex/attachments/download/39/NAWDEX_EUMETNET_template_RADIOSONDES.doc. The list specifies advance warning deadlines for our requests. The template-text has to be copied to the body of the request-email (NO ATTACHMENT!). Generally we agreed on the following activation schedule (with some differences regarding activation for weekend and Monday):

* Announcement of the required additional sondes for specific stations 1-2 days in advance by the NAWDEX community 

* announcement of a regular time interval for a defined time window 

* go/no-go decision 12-24 h in advance

* for details see list +[AS: add link]+

!{width:80%}Radiosonde_locs.png!

_Overview of the radiosonde stations within the European network_ 

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h2. E-AMDAR

E-AMDAR (Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay) facilitates the fully automated collection and transmission of weather observations from commercial aircraft. The E-AMDAR programme is an integrated component of the WMO Global Observing System (GOS) of the World Weather Watch (WWW) Programme. The system is operated by EUMETNET Member NMHS in collaboration and cooperation with partner airlines. E-AMDAR provides ascent/descent profile measurements at airports. 

The regular schedule is that every 3 hours a profile is produced from airports where E-AMDAR airplanes are starting and landing. Some airlines are already providing 1 hourly profiles, depending on the user needs. For NAWDEX it is planned that the NAWDEX organization tells E-AMDAR Team, from which area (1, 2 or 3) additional data are requested. E-AMDAR Team makes the changes in the E-AMDAR Optimisation Systems so that 1 hourly profiles, where available, are activated in the requested area.

The NAWDEX Team can activate different AMDAR regions that are defined as follows:

*	Area 1 (Scandinavia): 	LLC (4°E / 54°N) ;	URC (31°E / 72°N)

*	Area 2 (Iberia):	LLC (-11°E / 35°N); 	URC (4°E / 44°N)

*	Area 3 (Adriatic):	LLC (6°E / 37°N); 	URC (25°E / 48°N)

!{width:50%}Stations2.png!

_Location of the AMDAR areas that can be activated during NAWDEX_

E-AMDAR observations can be activated with the "E-AMDAR-Email-Template":https://internal.wavestoweather.de/nawdex/attachments/download/40/NAWDEX_EUMETNET_template_EAMDAR.doc by choosing one of the above mentioned areas. The template-text has to be copied to the body of the request-email (NO ATTACHMENT!). Lead times for the activation are:

*	regular schedule on weekdays: 48h before, according to table

*	Data for Monday has to be requested until Friday noon

*	Request for Tuesday can be sent on Monday 

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h2. EASAP

EASAP radiosoundings are performed onboard ships (Container ships) that do their regular sevice on routes in the North Atlantic between Europe and North America. All soundings are performed by the crew members (not members of the weather Services) that volunteer. So it is their decision to whether they can release additional sondes as of course their focus is put on their regular duties (nautics,...). 

The big advantage for is that the ships are often in data sparse ocean regions. Ships perform regular ascents at various times which depend on location (reduced number of ascents near harbours) and the daily work onboard.W ithin the EASAP-Data Portal (infomation can be given by Andreas Schäfler) we are able to inform ourselves about the ship routes and ships. 

Request are sent with the "EASAP-Email-template":https://internal.wavestoweather.de/nawdex/attachments/download/45/NAWDEX_EUMETNET_template_EASAP.doc the ships are requested to perform 6-hourly ascents. The template-text has to be copied to the body of the request-email (NO ATTACHMENT!). The Email-contact Information is provided by Andreas Schäfler or Sabine Hafner. Sondes can be requested at the main synoptic times, at 00, 06, 12 and 18 UTC.

!{width:50%}EASAP.png!

_Radiosonde ascents from EASAP ships between 4 and 6 September. Releases are not regular so that it is difficult to predict future positions. However when we know the direction of the ship we will be able to define appropriate regions to activate the right ships._

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