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Tampa Bay, FL sounding

KTBW · 12Z Oct 7 launch · 13 m elevation

freezing level · 16,493 ft up1000850700500300200100-40°C-20°C0°C20°C40°Ctemperaturedewpoint12Z Oct 6 launchsurface parcel12Z Oct 7 launchWind, surface to 6 km
The 12Z Oct 7 launch on a Skew-T log-p, the key drawn on it. The hodograph is the wind through the lowest six kilometres, coloured by height: red near the ground, amber to three kilometres, green above. The 12Z Oct 6 launch is the faint trace behind it.

Barely any instability with little to hold storms down (CAPE 1 J/kg). The column is very moist. The freezing level is about 16,500 ft up.

CAPE
1 J/kg · none
CIN
0 J/kg · weak cap
LCL
1009 hPa · 23.8°C
Lifted index
-2 · marginally unstable
K index
39.4
Precipitable water
66 mm

Reading a sounding

A radiosonde goes up on a balloon twice a day and reports temperature, humidity and wind all the way through the atmosphere. On a Skew-T the temperature axis leans right as you go up, so a parcel of air rising without exchanging heat - the faint purple lines - runs nearly straight up the page, and the gap between the red temperature trace and the green dewpoint trace is how dry each layer is.

CAPE is the energy a surface parcel would pick up rising through the profile: the area where the dashed parcel path sits to the right of the red trace. CIN is the energy holding it down first - the cap. The hodograph is the wind with height; a curve that turns clockwise with height is what rotating storms are made of.

Nearby launches

Cape Canaveral, FLMiami, FLJacksonville, FLKey West, FLTallahassee, FLCharleston, SC

Source: National Weather Service radiosonde observations for KTBW, via the Iowa Environmental Mesonet RAOB archive. Indices are computed here from the surface parcel and can differ from SPC’s.