MSLP change versus 5appp group change

[John W. Nielsen-Gammon]

Folks -
   Leave it to the NWS to provide formulas that require units of feet,  
inches of mercury, and degrees Rankine!
   By my calculation, the falling temperatures 12 hours earlier at AVP  
would be sufficient to cause the sea level pressure tendency to be  
greater than the station pressure tendency by 0.17 mb; the remaining  
difference can easily be due to roundoff.
    If this is the complete explanation, one would always expect the 12Z  
appp tendency to be biased low relative to the SLP difference, and the  
00Z appp tendency to be biased high.
      - John

On Dec 4, 2006, at 2:09 PM, Steve Chiswell wrote:

> Art,
>
> The 5appp group is a "station pressure tendancy" rather than SLP
> tendency:
> http://meted.ucar.edu/export/asos/Pressure.HTML
>
> The web pabe above provides formulas relating the two, relate to the
> pressure reduction ration and reduction constant for the site.
>
> Steve Chiswell
> Unidata User Support
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, 2006-12-04 at 13:53 -0500, Arthur A. Person wrote:
>> Hi...
>>
>> This isn't a gempak question directly but relates to data used by  
>> gempak.
>>
>> I was looking at surface METAR data today and came upon some  
>> perplexing
>> discrepancies between observed 3-hour differences in reported mean
>> sea-level pressure (e.g. P(12Z)-P(09Z)) versus the reported 3-hour
>> tendencies (5appp groups reported in the METAR remarks sections).   
>> Most
>> stations do not exhibit the discrepancy, but a few show significant
>> differences.  I first noticed this in some case data from last July  
>> and
>> decided to see if it shows up in todays data, and it does.  For  
>> example:
>>
>> KDUJ 040856Z AUTO 27013KT 10SM BKN023 OVC030 M06/M10 A3016 RMK AO2
>>       SNB04E44 SLP234 P0000 60000 T10611100 58002
>>
>> KDUJ 040956Z AUTO 26014KT 10SM BKN021 OVC026 M07/M11 A3017 RMK AO2
>>       SLP238 T10671106
>>
>> KDUJ 041056Z AUTO 27013KT 10SM BKN021 OVC028 M07/M11 A3018 RMK AO2
>>       SLP242 T10671106
>>
>> KDUJ 041156Z AUTO 26014KT 6SM -SN BKN016 BKN026 OVC037 M08/M11
>>       A3018 RMK AO2 SNB1059 SLP244 P0000 60000 T10781111 11039
>>       21078 51005
>>
>> The 12Z-09Z SLP difference is 1024.4-1023.4 = +1.0 mb/3hrs, whereas  
>> the
>> 12Z 5appp group is 51005 or +0.5 mb/3hrs, a 0.5 mb discrepancy.
>>
>> Similarly,
>>
>> METAR KAVP 040854Z 34009G14KT 10SM BKN037 OVC085 01/M04 A3006 RMK
>> AO2 PK WND 230243/0803 SLP182 T00061044 58010 $
>>
>> METAR KAVP 040954Z 35013G22KT 10SM SCT029 BKN036 OVC046 00/M07 A3007
>> RMK AO2 SLP187 T00001067 $
>>
>> METAR KAVP 041054Z 33012KT 10SM CLR M01/M09 A3007 RMK AO2 SLP186
>> T10111094 $
>>
>> METAR KAVP 041154Z 33011KT 10SM BKN034 OVC055 M01/M08 A3009 RMK AO2
>> SLP192 T10111078 10006 21011 53007 $
>>
>> The 12Z-09Z SLP difference is 1019.2-1018.2 = +1.0 mb/3hrs, whereas  
>> the
>> 12Z 5appp group is 53007 or +0.7 mb/3hrs, a 0.3 mb discrepancy.
>>
>> The case I was looking at from July had discrepancies as large as 0.9  
>> mb.
>>
>> I suspect this is some sort of "feature" of ASOS related to the
>> "characteristic" of the changing pressure which tries to capture a  
>> more
>> immediate tendency than a simple 3-hour difference, but if true,  
>> that's a
>> departure from what weather forecasters are used to seeing.  Does  
>> anyone
>> know the real reason why the ASOS 5appp tendencies don't always agree  
>> with
>> the change in the reported pressures?  Are there any documentation  
>> links
>> you could point me to?
>>
>>                              Thanks...
>>
>>                                Art
>>
>> Arthur A. Person
>> Research Assistant, System Administrator
>> Penn State Department of Meteorology
>> email:  person at meteo.psu.edu, phone:  814-863-1563
>>
________________________________________________
John W. Nielsen-Gammon
Professor and Texas State Climatologist
Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University (O&M Rm 1012A)
3150 TAMUS, College Station, TX 77843-3150
Ph 979-862-2248  Fax 979-862-4466