14 balloon reports flagged, satellite sector moved
Notices & outages
An operational notice from the Senior Duty Meteorologist.
Balloon reports 00Z NAM 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 00Z run of the NAM.
14 stations were flagged: 4 sent no usable sounding at all, 9 reported a numeric status code, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SYA 70414 | Shemya AFB, AK | No weather balloon data from this station reached the model for this cycle — either no launch happened or the data did not arrive in time. | No report |
| JAX 72206 | Jacksonville/Intl, FL | No weather balloon data from this station reached the model for this cycle — either no launch happened or the data did not arrive in time. | No report |
| MAF 72265 | Midland/Midland Reg. Airterm, TX | No weather balloon data from this station reached the model for this cycle — either no launch happened or the data did not arrive in time. | No report |
| OTX 72786 | Spokane, WA | No weather balloon data from this station reached the model for this cycle — either no launch happened or the data did not arrive in time. | No report |
| OTZ 70133 | Kotzebue, Ralph Wien, AK | Ground equipment failure — the station’s tracking/receiving equipment was down, so no usable sounding was produced. | 10142 |
| BET 70219 | Bethel/Bethel Airport, AK | The station reported status code 10159. NWS does not publish a public legend for these codes, so we will not guess at what it means — it signals some problem with the launch or the data. unrecognised status code 10159 | 10159 |
| MCG 70231 | Mcgrath, AK | The station reported status code 10159. NWS does not publish a public legend for these codes, so we will not guess at what it means — it signals some problem with the launch or the data. unrecognised status code 10159 | 10159 |
| SNP 70308 | St. Paul Islands, AK | The station reported status code 10159. NWS does not publish a public legend for these codes, so we will not guess at what it means — it signals some problem with the launch or the data. unrecognised status code 10159 | 10159 |
| AKN 70326 | King Salmon, AK | The station reported status code 10159. NWS does not publish a public legend for these codes, so we will not guess at what it means — it signals some problem with the launch or the data. unrecognised status code 10159 | 10159 |
| ADQ 70350 | Kodiak, AK | Ground equipment failure — the station’s tracking/receiving equipment was down, so no usable sounding was produced. | 10142 |
| TWC 72274 | Tucson, AZ | The station reported status code 10159. NWS does not publish a public legend for these codes, so we will not guess at what it means — it signals some problem with the launch or the data. unrecognised status code 10159 | 10159 |
| LWX 72403 | Washington/Dulles Intl, VA | Ground equipment failure — the station’s tracking/receiving equipment was down, so no usable sounding was produced. | 10142 |
| GCM 78384 | Owen Roberts Airport Grand Cay · Cayman Islands | Ground equipment failure — the station’s tracking/receiving equipment was down, so no usable sounding was produced. | 10142 |
| BDA 78016 | L F Wade Intl · Bermuda | 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. | Missing TTBB |
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 over Mexico, about 380 mi SW of Mexico City, Mexico. 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
- 15.0°N, 102.6°W view on map
- Window
- from until
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 170132 ADMSDM SENIOR DUTY METEOROLOGIST NWS ADMINISTRATIVE MESSAGE NWS CENTRAL OPERATIONS COLLEGE PARK MD 0131Z SAT OCT 17 2026 The 00Z NAM began and is running on time with 7 Alaskan...25 Canadian...62 CONUS...15 Mexican...8 Caribbean...and 9 Pacific raobs available for ingest. 00Z NAM RAOB RECAP... 70414/SYA - No report 72206/JAX - No report 72265/MAF - No report 72786/OTX - No report 70133/OTZ - 10142 70219/BET - 10159 70231/MCG - 10159 70308/SNP - 10159 70326/AKN - 10159 70350/ADQ - 10142 72274/TWC - 10159 72403/LWX - 10142 78384/GCM - 10142 78016/BDA - Missing TTBB MDS STATUS... GOES-W MDS Sector 1 will be centered over 15N/102.6W from 17/12Z until 18/12Z to support NHC tropical weather ops for Hurricane Trudy. Ready/SDM/NCO