A time constant is the amount of time it takes for a meteorological sensor to respond to a rapid change in a measurand until it is measuring values within the accuracy tolerance usually expected of the sensor.
This most often applies to measurements of temperature, dewpoint temperature, humidity and air pressure. Radiosondes are especially affected due to their rapid increase in altitude.
Famous quotes containing the words time and/or constant:
“Unquiet wanderer
Draw the Glasnevin coverlet anew
About your head till the dust stops your ear,
The time for you to taste of that salt breath
And listen at the corners has not come;
You had enough of sorrow before death—”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)