Chuck Doswell said: Both of these show supers coming out of nearly saturated regions below. That looks to me like wetting of the temperature sensor and then rapid evaporative cooling. Didn't the older Vaisala sondes also have this problem? It may be worse for the RRS package, but I seem to recall seeing similar things 'back in the day' before all of this mess associated with new manufacturers getting the contract for sensor packages.
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Yes, wetting of the sonde sensors has always been a problem (e.g., Slonaker et al., Weather and Forecasting, 1996). However, it is the frequency in which supers aloft occur with the new sondes that has increased tremendously with the implementation of the NWS RRS. The Sippican micro sonde is quite small and has proven to be impacted by high liquid water environments much more easily than Vaisala or VIZ precursor sondes. Many upper-air sites with RRS now have 5 to 10 times as many soundings with supers aloft than before the new sondes went into use. The details are quantified for a number of upper-air sounding sites in the web paper - Strongly Superadiabatic Layers Aloft by Maddox and Schwartz - which can be accessed at www.madweather.com
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