rawinsonde Meteorol.
(ˈreɪwɪnsɒnd)
[f. rawin + sonde.]
A balloon-borne device comprising a radiosonde and a radar target which both transmits meteorological data to ground stations and permits rawin observations to be made, freq. applied to the balloon and instrument package combined.
1946 Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc. XXVII. 371/1 The recent trend in practice is to combine radiosonde observations and winds-aloft observations in one operation, a Rawinsonde. 1955 Sci. News Let. 24 Sept. 197/1 Equipment the Weather Bureau plans to purchase includes:..sixty-five new rawinsondes, to measure winds aloft, including the 200-mile-per-hour river of air known as the jet stream. 1959 Jrnl. Geophysical Res. LXIV. 1835 Because of the great altitude of the core of the ‘polar-night’ jet stream, only isolated rawinsonde observations have penetrated the core. 1970 Jrnl. Atmospheric Sci. XXVII. 420/1 Sufficient information content exists within the operational U.S. rawinsonde network to resolve the three-dimensional structure of frontal zones. 1975 Q. Jrnl. R. Meteorol. Soc. CI. 336 The rainfall patterns are interpreted within a framework provided by routine upper air data supplemented by long sequences of nominally 1-hourly rawinsondes. |