1 balloon reports flagged, satellite sector moved
Notices & outages
An operational notice from the Senior Duty Meteorologist.
Balloon reports UPDATED 12Z RAOB RECAP...
Twice a day, NWS and partner agencies release weather balloons that carry a radiosonde — a small instrument package that radios back temperature, humidity, pressure and wind as it climbs. Those soundings are one of the main ingredients in a forecast model’s starting conditions. This section is the roll call of stations that had a problem for the 12Z run.
1 station was flagged: 1 was missing part of the transmission. A handful of gaps is normal and is not by itself a sign of a forecast problem — the models are built to work with an incomplete picture.
| Station | Where | What happened | As printed |
|---|---|---|---|
| SLE 72694 | Salem/Mcnary, OR | The station reported, but part of the sounding transmission was missing — specifically TTBB, the "significant levels" section that carries the extra detail between the standard pressure levels. The GFS run still got a usable report from this station. | Missing TTBB for the NAM...full report in for the GFS |
Satellite moves MDS STATUS...
Each GOES weather satellite has two “mesoscale sectors” — small, movable windows that the satellite photographs roughly every 60 seconds, far more often than its routine full-disk and continental scans. Forecasters aim them at whatever is most important that day. This section announces where they are being pointed and for how long.
GOES-West is pointing mesoscale sector 1 at a point about 140 mi NNE of Las Vegas, NV — to support flash flood and heavy rainfall forecasting. That means this patch of sky gets a fresh satellite image about once a minute instead of every 5 to 10 minutes, so forecasters can watch storms develop almost in real time.
- Centre point
- 38.0°N, 114.0°W view on map
- Window
- from until
- Reason given
- excessive rainfall monitoring over UT and AZ
Show the original message
Exactly as NWS transmitted it. Everything above is our plain-English reading of this text — if the two ever disagree, this is the authoritative version.
000 NOUS42 KWNO 121509 ADMSDM SENIOR DUTY METEOROLOGIST NWS ADMINISTRATIVE MESSAGE NWS CENTRAL OPERATIONS COLLEGE PARK MD 1509Z MON OCT 12 2026 The 12Z GFS began and is running on time. UPDATED 12Z RAOB RECAP... 72694/SLE - Missing TTBB for the NAM...full report in for the GFS MDS STATUS... GOES-W MDS Sector 1 is now centered over 38N/114W from 1409Z until 13/1200Z in support of excessive rainfall monitoring over UT and AZ. Ready/SDM/NCO