Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Sea Level Pressure Problems

Map above shows the Tucson airport (TUS - A) and davis Monthan AFB (DMA) is indicated off to the northeast. The disance between the two observing sites is about 5 to 6 km. As I have mentioned several times in the past, the SLP at DMA is often (usually?) around 2 mb or more lower than the SLP at TUS. This would be quite a mesoscale pressure gradient if were actually there. For example, at 6 am this morning the SLP at TUS was reported as 1011.3 mb and at DMA it was reported as 1008.8 mb. Since the 6 am altimeter settings are essentially the same and the station pressures appear reasonable, the problem must lie in the reduction-to-sea-level code at one of the sites. Since TUS "fits" with nearby observing stations and DMA does not, it appears that DMA continues to routinely report erroneous sea level pressures.

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