Unidata Local Data Manager (LDM) World Meteorological Organization (WMO) (LDMSFCMETR) Algorithms

1.0 General Description

The Unidata Local Data Manager (LDM) (Unidata, 2002) distributes World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Surface data. These data are ingested by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research/Joint Office for Science Support UCAR/JOSS in ASCII WMO meteorological message structure format (NOAA/NWS, 2002).

2.0 Detailed Data Description

This dataset contains ASOS, AWOS, and MANUAL stations. Station ID's are 3 characters long. Some networks use the 4-character ID to refer to these stations. To obtain the 4-character id, prepend a "K". For example, station ABR could also be referred to as station KABR.

2.1 Detailed Format Description

The primary feedset name is "WMO" which includes Public Product Service (PPS), Domestic Data Service (DDS), High resolution Data Service (HDS), and International Data Service (IDS) feedtypes. Only products that match the patterns ^S[AP].* .... ([0-3][0-9])([0-2][0-9]) and ^SX..81 .... ([0-3][0-9])([0-2][0-9]) are collected. In these patterns, S stands for surface, A for Aviation Routine Reports (FM 15 - METAR), P for Special aviation weather reports (FM 16 - SPECI), and X for miscellaneous text records. For information on the METAR format see the ASOS User's Guide ( NOAA, 2003).

3.0 Quality Control Processing

This dataset was not quality controlled by UCAR/JOSS.

4.0 References

NOAA, National Weather Service, Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS), cited 2003: ASOS User's Guide [Available online from http://www.nws.noaa.gov/asos]

NOAA/NWS, cited 2002: WMO Message structure 2000 Paraphrased Version [Available from http://www.nws.noaa.gov/tg/head.html].

Unidata, Cited 2002: Unidata LDM [Available online from http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/ldm/].