Any mission that has not been tasked by the National Hurricane Center will appear in the archive at the link above. Research missions, including ones that are tropical, and winter missions will appear in this section of the archive.
Dropped from aircraft, once an AXBT is in the water this expendable instrument drops a sensor deep into the water column measuring water temperature at various depths.
Recon data on our site is raw. The raw observations will contain errors at times. The dates above represent the period over which reconnaissance took place, not the duration of the storm. The first date is the date of the first mission and the last date is the date of the last mission. All other observations noted on this archive page come solely from vortex messages, if available. Since this data is more likely to have been reviewed, we use it rather than using any other products on this summary page. It will still sometimes be erroneous. Additionally, our site will not always decode the most significant observations. If that occurs, they will not be reflected here. The highest flight level wind will usually be from the highest flight level wind remark in the remarks section, though it may come from item F, which is where the maximum inbound flight level wind is reported. The highest estimated surface wind is either from item D, the highest surface wind on the inbound leg, or from the highest surface wind remark if available. The surface wind is estimated either by SFMR or visually. The lowest mean sea level pressure (MSLP) comes from item H. If it was extrapolated, rather than measured by a dropsonde, it will be noted if it was noted as such in the vortex message.
Once a suspect area strengthens into a depression or named storm, or a depression strengthens into a named storm, we manually associate the recon that was done into that storm when it was weaker with the name of the highest level of development it achieved. (depression number or named storm)
