Enroute Icing

### Produced by The COMET® Program

### Step 1: Diagnosing Locations of Icing » NWP Analyses » Model Soundings - Description

Model soundings are analysis and forecast vertical profiles of temperature T and dew point Td in each model grid column. These are useful where and when radiosonde data are unavailable. To validate model soundings, you can use nearest neighbor 00 and 12 UTC (and occasional 06 and 18 UTC) radiosonde observations, where available.

When using model soundings, do the same icing checks as for radiosondes. (Review the Icing Flowchart)

Advantages

- Fills in data gaps between radiosondes in space and time
- Can validate initial conditions by comparing to radiosonde data when available

Limitations

- Less detailed than radiosonde Skew-Ts
- Not useful if the model analysis is poor