Not quite, “sounding” means we capture vertical profile of atmosphere as a snapshot. This is usually done with weather balloons and bunch of sensors attached (temperature, moisture, etc). We have sounding stations in all state https://www.weather.gov/upperair/sounding. Data from these weather balloons are fed directly live into weather models as “truth” so the models can course correct and make better near future predictions. It depends on the station, but hourly soundings is generally common. The TV station weather lady was complaining that in her particular state (WI) there hasn’t been any sounding data today despite being under literal tornado warning right now.
is that map showing the entire noaa operating with only a single nexrad station?
Not quite, “sounding” means we capture vertical profile of atmosphere as a snapshot. This is usually done with weather balloons and bunch of sensors attached (temperature, moisture, etc). We have sounding stations in all state https://www.weather.gov/upperair/sounding. Data from these weather balloons are fed directly live into weather models as “truth” so the models can course correct and make better near future predictions. It depends on the station, but hourly soundings is generally common. The TV station weather lady was complaining that in her particular state (WI) there hasn’t been any sounding data today despite being under literal tornado warning right now.