Current Balloon Soundings Added to XC Maps
XC Skies adds sounding features on XC Maps allowing the review of model-based sounding profiles as well as every recently launched balloon sonde across the planet.
Current Radiosonde launched plotted onXC Maps.
For those pilots who live and breathe by analyzing skew-t plots and raw sounding data from balloon borne observations, you'll love these new additions to XC Maps. We've integrated interactive features that allow pilots to review sounding profiles from either the GFS model output data or actual radiosonde data from recently launched balloons. There are approximately 900 stations across the planet that regularly launch some form of balloon-based sounding. At most stations two sondes are launched, the first typically around sunrise and the second 12 hours after. These sounding profiles are fed back into forecasting models as quickly as possible to initialize those runs and 'guide' them toward the actual trends.
Just click on the balloon icon 
located at the top left of the Map window to open the search features for locating recently launched balloons. For GFS skew-t plots, click anywhere on the map and select the skew-t link in the Info Window.
Reading sounding data can be like reading tea leaves for some. Check out these resources on how to read skew-t plots and understand why they are highly useful plots for understanding soaring potential.
http://weather.unisys.com/upper_air/skew/details.html
http://www.theweatherprediction.com/thermo/skew-T_tutor/
http://squall.sfsu.edu/courses/metr200/handouts/skewt.html
http://www.met.tamu.edu/class/ATMO151/tut/sound/soundmain.html
http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/296/
