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	June 8, 2026, 20:22 (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	fc3ae2b2-d9ca-43c7-89c1-26f051a7f493
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	2026-06-03T16:52:48Z
programCode	{026:000}
publisher	NASA/MSFC/GHRC
resource-type	Dataset
source_datajson_identifier	true
source_hash	1b84fb2818994119993929204251e8e399a5a854db868dc5491afcf48b90988f
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"}