How to read a skew-t sounding

[tombo82685]

I remember a couple people asked about how to read a skew-t sounding and i dug up the one posted back in november or early december where i showed how to read one. Hopefully this educates people.

Im not sure if people know how to read skew-t soundings so i thought i would make a thread on a quick beginner editorial. If anyone wants to add to this go ahead because im not going to cover all the thing on the skew-t just the main things.

First off, this is a skew-t for philadelphia, pa at hr 192 off the 0z gfs.

lets go over what some of the things on this diagram stand for. The numbers on the bottom of the diagram represent the temperature in celsious. To the right are wind barbs that show wind direction at each level of the atmosphere. On the left hand side there are two sets of numbers. The one on the outside represents in mb the layers of the atmosphere. The numbers inside the graph are the elevation in meters from the surface. For instance, 850 mb, is 1356 meters above the surface or 4, 448 ft in elevation.

Now, the lines on the diagram. The solid red line on the graph is the temperature. The dotted red line is the virtual temperature. The green line is the dew point. The thin blue line is the wet bulb temperature. The solid black line that i outlined on the diagram is the freezing mark from the surface up to the upper atmosphere.

Now, i also highlighted two areas on this graph. The highlighted area to the right in red is everything above freezing. The highlighted area to the left in blue is everything below freezing. (note: i didnt highlight close to the line because you couldn't see the lines well when it was highlighted.)

Now in reading this map, lets start out at 850mb, a follow that across to the red line, we note that the 850 temperature is to the left of the black line (0 degrees C) in the blue shaded area, as well as the dew pt and wet bulb meaning at this time frame philly has a an 850 temp, dew pt and wet bulb below 0. Now lets look at the surface temperature for philly at 1000mb. Follow the 1000mb line till you meet the red line the surface temperature. We note here that the red line falls on the right hand side of the black line (0 degrees C) in the red shaded area meaning philly has a surface temp above freezing. We can also note that the wet bulb, and the dew pt are to the right of the black line (0 degrees 0)

So what you take from this sounding is. The whole column from about 900mb upward is below freezing. From 900mb below is above freezing, this would be a rain sounding if precip was failling.

Hopefully, this clears things up for people and you have actually learned a thing or two.

[Absolute Humidity]

Bookmarked and saved, thanks Tom

[dryslotted]

Thanks Tom, found this helpful...

[Lisse]

Very helpful, thank you.

[NaoPos]

Nice write up tombo. you have any saved from severe weather and a "snow" sounding? I don't have any saved on my comp. But i think the more we show on here, the more people would get the hang of reading them and seeing the difference between a "warm" rain sounding to a "cold" sounding. That helped me as i was learning to read them. if not, i'm sure i can probably google something up.

[tombo82685]

Nice write up tombo. you have any saved from severe weather and a "snow" sounding? I don't have any saved on my comp. But i think the more we show on here, the more people would get the hang of reading them and seeing the difference between a "warm" rain sounding to a "cold" sounding. That helped me as i was learning to read them. if not, i'm sure i can probably google something up.

yea i got some

heres a snow sounding

sleet sounding

frz rain sounding

[Yes_Probably_Maybe_No]

I remember a couple people asked about how to read a skew-t sounding and i dug up the one posted back in november or early december where i showed how to read one. Hopefully this educates people.

Nice job with this. It should be noted that if you draw a line parallel to the 0c line, you can get a better approx. for the temperature at the level you seek (for curious minds). So say for example you are again looking at the 850 temps, you go across to the red line, and then with your own parallel line (I usually use a piece of paper) you go back SW to the x-axis and that'll give you a temp of about -3/-4C at 850mb (using tombo's diagram).

[B Dawk 20]

So, if I'm reading these right (the ones you just posted are less clear than the twister data ones (I like the line colors for dewpoint, wet bulb, et al) ), a ZR sounding is when the 850 is slightly above freezing but the surface is below?

And what's the deal with that IP sounding?

[tombo82685]

So, if I'm reading these right (the ones you just posted are less clear than the twister data ones (I like the line colors for dewpoint, wet bulb, et al) ), a ZR sounding is when the 850 is slightly above freezing but the surface is below?

And what's the deal with that IP sounding?

Yea these soundings were off another site and arent color coded.... For the ip sounding, just take the 0 at the bottom follow that line at a 45 degree angle to the right.. you will note around 900 to 800 mb there is a temp inversion where the line goes to the right of the 0 degree line meaning that zone is above freezing. The 2nd line below in back of that is the dew pt which is at freezing.