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Weather Data Archive - Help

You can find help on these topics on this page. If you do not see what you're looking for, check the Help Index.


How do I use the Weather Data Archive?
The Spaceport Weather Data Archive is a repository of all locally collected weather data at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Included in the Spaceport Weather Data Archive are:

*   Weather Towers at Multiple levels (up to 492 feet)
*   Electric Field Mills
*   Cloud to Ground and Inter/Intracloud Lightning Detection Systems
*   50 MHz and 915 MHz Doppler Radar Wind Profilers (including their Spectral Data)
*   Rain Gauges
*   Upper Air Soundings
*   Human Surface Observations
*   Other Weather Related Data

Note that weather radar data is excluded.
The Spaceport weather data is updated every 60 minutes for certain instruments and as frequently as 15 minutes for other instrumentation. CGLSS (Cloud to Ground Lightning) data is updated every 30 minutes. Reference the specific links to validate the frequency of updates. Data is available 24/7 over a publicly accessible website. The data is saved as is from the instrumentation and is not under Quality Control. Some data may be missing as a result of communications outages, power outages, routine maintenance, and calibration. But the missing data may be available from other sources. Please confer with the KSC Weather office at (321) 867-0814 prior to using the data to ensure the most appropriate and most applicable use of the data. Frequently the weather office can provide technical advice to guide any research activities toward local operations at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

What is 4DLSS?
4DLSS, or Four Dimensional Lightning Surveillance System, is a lightning system used by the 45th Weather Squadron of the U.S. Air Force. It implemented two major upgrades to the previous lightning system. One was an upgrade to the LDAR-II sensors. The second was the upgrade to process the observations from the Cloud to Ground Surveillance System (CGLSS) in the new LDAR-II processor. This enhancement is called CGLSS-II.

How do I search and download lightning or electric field mill data?
You can search for historical Cloud to Ground Lightning Surveillance System (CGLSS) data, which records cloud to ground lightning strikes within the area surrounding Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, or Lightning Detection and Ranging (LDAR) data, which records cloud to cloud lightning. For CGLSS or LDAR data, click on the “Search CGLSS” or “Search LDAR” icon to enter search criteria to narrow your results. You may download your results to a file for use in further research.
LDAR filters include the event date range, and the latitude and longitude. You can specify all values, greater than or less than the entered value, between two values, or outside two values for longitude and latitude. Date/time values are shown as UTC as well as the Julian date. Values are given for X (east/west), Y (north/south) and Z (height measured from reference point) coordinates, in addition to the height of the event measured from the nearest sensor. Type of events will be “Four Dimensional Lightning Surveillance System (4DLSS) or CGLSS.
CGLSS filters include the event date range and the signal strength. You can specify all values, greater than or less than the entered value, between two values, or outside two values for signal strength.
Electric field mill data are collected at specific locations at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. You can search and download field mill data for specific periods of time or by location. You can use the interactive map to locate specific collection points. On the Lightning and Field Mill Data page, click on the “View Archived Field Mill data” icon to view the field mill information on your computer screen, or click the “Search Field Mill data” icon to enter your search criteria. You may download your results to a file for use in further research.

How is the 1-minute mean electric potential gradient calculated?
During a 1-minute period, an electrostatic field sensor (field mill) should make 3000 observations (i.e., 50 observations per second x 60 seconds per minute).  Note, the averaging calculation used to determine the 1-minute mean data was recently modified on 6/10/2021 (around 22 UTC).  Prior to this date, the 1-minute mean data at each sensor represents the summation of the electric potential gradient data within the 1-minute period and divides by 3000 (i.e., the calculation assumes there is no missing data).  Starting on the above date, the 1-minute averaging was changed to instead divide by the actual number of observations taken during that period and to also only perform the calculation if at least 75% of the 3000 observations exist.  We are currently unable to modify how the averaging was previously determined in our database, so it is the responsibility of the user to recalculate the 1-minute mean using the 50 Hz data if they prefer a different averaging method prior to or after the above date.

How do I use the CGLSS Playback?
The CGLSS Geographic Map Playback Filter will allow you to see the locations of lightning strikes over a seven hour period. All times shown are UTC. The strikes are color-coded by time of occurrence. The color bar graph above the map shows the number of strikes occurring in each hour of the seven hour period. The same colors are used on the map to show the timing of the lightning strikes. From this, the direction of the storm can be determined. If the earliest lightning strikes are found on the eastern side of the map, and the later ones on the western side, an east to west movement can be inferred. The Zoom To feature allows you to zoom to the area around 9 specific sensor locations at Kennedy Space Center. They are Atlas V Spaceflight Operations Center (ASOC), Astrotech, Launch Complexes 39A, 39B, 40 and 41, Launch Operations Control Center (LOCC), Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and Vertical Integration Facility (VIF). The Playback feature will show the strikes occurring in each hour in 5 second intervals

How do I search and download rainfall data?
Rain gauge data are collected at specific locations at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.  You can search and download rainfall data for specific periods of time or by location. You can use the interactive map to locate specific collection points.  On the Rainfall Reports Data page, click the “Search Rain Gauges” button and enter your search criteria to view the rainfall information on your computer screen.  You may download your results to a file for use in further research.
Rain Gauge 23     No data since  10/15/2002
Rain Gauge 33      No data since  01/01/2003

What does the shaded rainfall heatmap represent?
The shaded rainfall heatmap was created using the Heatmap Layer option from the Google maps visualization library.  The heatmap doesn’t represent lines of equal rainfall.  Instead, it represents the location of the highest and lowest rainfall totals observed at the individual rain gauges across the Eastern Range for the selected period of record and uses the pre-defined range of rainfall totals displayed in the color bar.

How do I search and download upper air sounding data?
Upper air sounding data are collected at specific locations at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. You can search and download Upper air sounding data for specific periods of time. On the Upper Air Soundings Data page, click on the “Search AMPS Low Res” icon to search the low resolution AMPS balloon data on your computer screen, or click the “Search AMPS High Res” icon to search the high resolution AMPS balloon data on your computer screen. You may download your results to a file for use in further research.

How do I search and download wind profiler data?
Wind profiler data are collected at five specific locations at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and for two frequencies, 915 MHz and 50 MHz. You can search and download wind profiler data for specific periods of time. On the wind profiler page, click on the “Search 915 MHz” icon to search the 915 MHz data on your computer screen, or click the “Search 50 MHz” icon to search the 50 MHz data on your computer screen. You may download your results to a file for use in further research. The search screen will allow you to further filter the results by altitude and wind direction.

How do I find weather tower data?
Weather tower data are collected at forty-six specific locations at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and averaged for five minute intervals. You can search and download weather tower data for specific periods of time. On the weather tower page, click on the “Search Weather Tower” icon to search via your computer screen. You may download your results to a file for use in further research. The search screen will allow you to filter the results by date range and any of the following: height, temperature, relative humidity, average wind direction, average wind speed, peak wind direction and peak wind speed. Some towers have sensors on two sides to allow avoiding downwind effects in the wind observations. Two directional indicators are in the data (usually NW and SE). The first directional indicator tells which side of the tower the wind measurement was taken. The second directional indicator tells which side is the upwind side of the tower. Since most users will want the upwind side, you will usually choose the data line for which the two directional indicators match (i.e. NW NW or SE SE). Towers 2, 6, 40, 41, 110 (200 ft), and 313 (500 ft) are selected by default.

LC-39B Towers Weather Sensors
Within Launch Complex 39B (LC-39B), there are three lightning towers with sensors positioned at 4 heights on each tower. These sensors capture wind speed, wind direction, temperature, and relative humidity. In order to fit the data into the existing weather archive structure, it is necessary to identify each sensor using a reference height as a locator. For example, the MIDDS ID on Tower 2 shown as 258 feet high, is actually 257 feet high.

Weather Tower

How do I find weather-related publications?
Publications written by NASA pertaining to the types of measurements found on this site, have been included in the Related Scientific Publications, Papers section. Click on the Related Scientific Publications, Papers tab to see the list. You may scroll through the list and click on the title of the publication to open it in another window, or enter a search term in the search box to find publications that have that term in the title.

How do I use the interactive map?
The interactive map shows the locations of many different types of weather sensors. You can click the map to enlarge it; then you will be able to zoom in to specific points of interest and move around the map area. The icons at the bottom of the map indicate various types of weather sensors. You can select all, just one, or several to locate them on the map. If you select one or more sensor types, then you will also have the ability to select specific sensors from the pull down. It will be limited to the types of sensors you selected. When you hover your mouse pointer over a particular sensor location on the map, you will see a pop-up with the name of the sensor, and its geographic coordinates.

Attention
It is the responsibility of the user of this data to validate the data contents as to accuracy and as to its application for the intended use.