Water temperature collected by airborne expendable bathythermographs from US Air Force WC-130J aircraft in the Tropical Atlantic, North Atlantic Ocean, and other basins from 2011-07-28 to 2019-09-03 (NCEI Accession 0209221)

USAF 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron deployed nearly 1500 AXBTs during more than 175 flights, including 115 missions into 29 named storms, including 7 major hurricanes.

These upper ocean temperature observations were part of a joint, inter-agency demonstration project to increase the accuracy of hurricane forecasts in coupled numerical weather prediction models. Every profile was collected onboard the aircraft and any required manual editing was performed. An extensive review of the observations has been conducted and quality codes have been applied to each profile.