AirDat's superior weather information solutions are made possible by its patented TAMDAR sensor. The airborne sensor is the heart of an integrated system that includes a real-time global satellite communication network and ground-based QA, processing and distribution computers.

Atmospheric models used by others are driven by the same public domain data set, and they are limited by the resolution and timing of this data. Weather balloon observations are the most important source of atmospheric data for model assimilation, and these are obtained from 69 locations in the continental US. Balloons are launched twice a day, and the data is at least two hours old by the time it is available; models cannot be updated until the new data is released.

In contrast, the observations from AirDat's sensor network are a continuous stream, available for assimilation in less than a minute from the time of observation. Aircraft take off and land throughout the day, so soundings are not limited to twice daily. In addition to temporal gaps, there are also large geographic gaps between weather balloon launch sites. AirDat fills these geographic gaps with enroute observations and soundings from regional airports where weather balloons are not launched.

For its modeling, AirDat starts with the same public domain data set as the others, then adds its unique TAMDAR data, ingested with high-resolution modeling techniques on computers optimized for the real time TAMDAR data stream. AirDat can schedule its model runs to capitalize on market timing opportunities or serve business needs without waiting for government data to be released, because the TAMDAR data stream is continuous, and the temporal and spatial resolution of the observations is much greater than the government's weather balloon soundings. Better atmospheric knowledge yields better forecasts.

AirDat's engineers, software developers and atmospheric scientists have created sophisticated management tools and analysis and display applications to maximize the benefit and usability of the proprietary TAMDAR data set. The result is weather information solutions that are demonstrably more accurate than those from government or other private sources - because they are driven by better atmospheric data that is unique to AirDat.