A Case From the Fronts and Atlantic Storm Track Experiment (FASTEX)
Published: 5th February, 1997
FASTEX took place during January and February of 1997. It focused on low pressure systems over the North Atlantic region and information from aircraft flights, surface observations, dropsondes, radiosondes, radars and satellites was collected and archived. Meteorologists from many different European and North American countries participated. More information about FASTEX can be found at the following two sites: http://mrd3.mmm.ucar.edu/FASTEX/FASTEX.html and http://www.joss.ucar.edu/fastex/
The CIRA-RAMM Team coordinated with scientists in Europe in requesting special one-minute frequency satellite scanning operations from NOAA's GOES-8. From these special datasets a subset, covering a low pressure system moving across the Atlantic Ocean during the period 1245 - 1845 UTC on February 5, 1997, is now available for access on CIRA's Virtual Laboratory server.
These digital, McIDAS format data files are available by anonymous FTP to: "canopus.cira.colostate.edu". They are in directory 97036_FASTEX. The 5-channel, full one-minute sector files are named with the conventional McIDAS "AREAnnnn" format, with nnnn=1000's indicating GOES Imager channel 1, nnnn=2000's for channel 2, etc. Channel 1 is visible, channel 2 is centered at 3.9 micrometers, channel 3 is at 6.7 micrometers (water vapor), channel 4 is the conventional IR window, and channel 5 is at 12.5 micrometers. Sets of the individual "AREAnnnn" files are also available in "zipped" format, collected in 95 self-extracting *.EXE files, with each of these containing all five channels for a 1-minute time period. These zipped, "FAS_A???.EXE" files, can be accessed directly by clicking here.