How to  Create a Template RAOB File

MJ Mahoney
Last Revision: February 11, 2011

RAOBman_Filter1.png

In RAOBman, click to | Open RAOB button | to open the MISSSION_RAOBs.RAOB2 file (HIPPO-3_RAOBs.RAOB2 in this example)
To speed up the process of finding a particular RAOB to use as a template, go  to the RAOBman | Filters tab | and enter the RAOB WMO name in the | Site frame | text box
Click the | Add button | to add it  to the |Site frame | combo box list. (The only one in this case.)
Enable the site filter by clicking the enable text box in the upper left hand corner turning it from red to green
Switch to the RAOBman | Select tab |

RAOBman_Filter2.png

On the | Select tab | click the | Search button | to load all the DNR soundings in the MISSION_RAOBs.RAOB2 file.
Go down the | Select list box | to the sounding that you want to use as the template (DNR 2010-03-15-12UT in this example)
Click the RAOBman | Select tab | Save Ref button | to specify this as the reference RAOB for the template file
This will automatically disable the RAOBman | Filter tab | Site frame | enable text box and clear the site list
It will then automatically clear the RAOBman | Select tab | and reload all the soundings in the MISSION_RAOBs.RAOB2 file

RAOBman_Filter3.png

Now set the RAOBman | Select tab | RMS text box | to a value that assures that 150-200 RAOBs will be found to be within this RMS of the reference/template profile
When we did this with 3.0 K only 44 RAOBs were found to match the template profile. Therefore the value was increased to 4.0 K as shown above.
After setting this value, click the RAOBman | Select tab | RMS button.
165 soundings were found on this second pass and save automatically in the DNR___2010031612.RAOB2 file in the \MISSION\RAOB\Templates\  folder

Note that the RAOBman | Select tab | RMS Zp Range (km) frame | can be used to restrict the altitude range over which the RMS is calculated.
This can be very useful when trying to get get good templates over a restricted range of the atmosphere such as near the tropopause where there may be particular structure that needs to captured.