HURRICANE AND SEVERE STORM SENTINEL (HS3) GLOBAL HAWK ADVANCED VERTICAL ATMOSPHERIC PROFILING SYSTEM (AVAPS) DROPSONDE SYSTEM V2

The Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) Global Hawk Advanced Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS) Dropsonde System dataset was collected by the Advanced Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS), built by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which served as the dropsonde system for the Global Hawk aircraft during the HS3 campaign. Goals for HS3 included: assessing the relative roles of large-scale environment and storm-scale internal processes; and addressing the controversial role of the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) in tropical storm formation and intensification as well as the role of deep convection in the inner-core region of storms. AVAPS dropsondes provide in-situ, high-vertical resolution measurements of atmospheric variables including pressure, temperature, humidity, geographic location, and winds, providing a vertical profile of the atmospheric conditions. The raw instrument measurement precision is as follows: pressure +-1.0 hPa, temperature +-0.2 degrees C, wind +-1 ms-1, and humidity +-7 percent. The measured information was transmitted via Iridium or Ku-Band satellite to the ground station where the Global Telecommunications System (GTS) performed additional processing for research and operational purposes.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Maintainer Earthdata Forum
Last Updated September 22, 2026, 05:07 (UTC)
Created April 1, 2025, 16:39 (UTC)
accessLevel public
bureauCode {026:00}
catalog_conformsTo https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
harvest_object_id 15ab27b4-9a16-4b0b-b005-1d226782a42f
harvest_source_id b99e41c6-fe79-4c19-bbc3-9b6c8111bfac
harvest_source_title Science Discovery Engine
identifier 10.5067/HS3/AVAPS/DROPSONDE/DATA202
license https://www.usa.gov/government-works
modified 2026-09-14T22:16:01Z
programCode {026:000}
publisher NASA/MSFC/GHRC
resource-type Dataset
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash b3a20544993a361505c4fc9b45c3bce7230b2536a21cd14e55656460100f16a7
source_schema_version 1.1
spatial ["CARTESIAN", [{"WestBoundingCoordinate": -97.5988, "NorthBoundingCoordinate": 47.1646, "EastBoundingCoordinate": -19.0779, "SouthBoundingCoordinate": 7.9001}]]
temporal 2012-09-07/2014-09-30
theme {"Earth Science"}