Balloon Observation File Formats

WindBorne primarily returns balloon data in JSON because it is flexible and easy to transport without imposing constraints on downstream systems. Some workflows, however, benefit from alternative formats or server‑side preprocessing. For those cases, we maintain a small set of internal utilities that we can package for external use upon request.

Superobbing

We offer superobbed data via an API endpoint. Internally, the superobbing algorithm is parameterized by maximum time window and altitude range for each aggregation bucket. If you need different settings, we can provide a configurable superobbing utility so you can tune the aggregation to your application.

NetCDF

We can generate NetCDF4 files based on a NOAA‑provided template. Observations are exposed in @ObsValue , standard deviations in @ObsError , and metadata such as height, latitude, longitude, date, timestamp, and flight number in @MetaData .

PrepBUFR

We can generate PrepBUFR files that have been used to assimilate data into GFS via GSI. The format uses codes 120 and 130 (rawinsondes). Because balloons drift, we generate a “profile” per observation rather than a single up‑and‑down profile, so the output will differ from a traditional rawinsonde PrepBUFR file.

Note that PrepBUFR implicitly uses pressure as the coordinate axis, and to our knowledge, height is not assimilated. For WindBorne data prior to a hardware revision that added barometric data above ~11–12 km, we recommend assimilating on height so stratospheric observations are included. Geometric/geopotential height is always available.