Overview of Automated Quality Assurance for January and February 1996

Following is an assessment of the automated quality assurance runs for January 
and February 1996
from Mark Shafer:
February was not terribly kind to
the Mesonet.  We had some problems with pressure readings in the
early part of the month (1st - 5th).  I think this was related to the
early February ice storm  which could have clogged pressure tubes.  There
were also numerous flags on TAIR during the month, especially at
MEDI, CAMA, CHEY and COOK.  I think these may have been attributable
to the dry conditions last winter, with more variability in temperature
from diurnal heating.  I would disregard "suspect (1)" flags on TAIR
during February. The same conditions were true for January.  There were several instances
of days with a number of PRES sensors being flagged, but I can't account
for the cause of these at this time.  I asked our QA manager to look 
into what might have been the culprit.  The same pattern of TAIR appeared
during January as well.

Users of the data should use the detailed quality assurance companion files
which are available through the XDC.

• -180.0 - +180.0(alt)
• accumulated rainfall since 00GMT except at 00 GMT, the number given is the total
  accumulation for the past 24 hours(prec_amt)
• vector average wind magnitude(wvec_10m)
• Time offset from base_time(time_offset)
• Retrieved pressure profile(pres)
• standard deviation of wind speed(wspd_sigma)
• average wind run (arithmetic average speed) at 10m(wspd_10m)
• vector average of wind direction measured at 10m(wdir_10m)
• air temperature at 1.5m(tdry_1_5m)
• base time in epoch(base_time)
• lon(lon)
• maximum 3-second wind speed within the 5-minute averaging period(wspd_max)
• average wind speed at 2m(wspd_2m)
• Relative Humidity (hybrid-b grid)(rh)
• air temperature at 9m(tdry_9m)
• solar radiation(srad)
• standard deviation of wind direction(wdir_sigma)
• North Latitude(lat)

• leaf wetness index, measurement of dew ranging from 0 (dry) to 100(wet)(leaf_ind)
• -180.0 - +180.0(alt)
• soil temperature at 5 cm beneath natural sod cover(tsoil5)
• 10 cm soil temp(tsoil10)
• soil temperature at 5 cm beneath bare soil(tbare5)
• Average battery voltage(vbat)
• base time in epoch(base_time)
• lon(lon)
• soil temperature at 10cm beneath bare soil(tbare10)
• soil temperature at 30 cm beneath bare soil(tbare30)
• Time offset from base_time(time_offset)
• North Latitude(lat)