International Workshop on Experiences with Automatic Weather Stations on Operational Use witin ...

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WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION
INSTRUMENTS AND OBSERVING METHODS
R E P 0 R T No. 58
WMOffD - No. 670
il~iiiUmiDI
009202
NOTE
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or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
This report has been produced without editorial revision by the WMO Secretariat. It is not an
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Organization of the ideas expressed.
Printed and distributed by ZAMG Austria.
t!IJI
International Workshop •
EXPERIENCES WITH AUTOMATIC WEATHER STATIONS IN
OPERATIONAL USE WITHIN NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICES
15- 17 May 1995
VIenna, Austria
ORGANIZER
Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics
CO-SPONSORS
Austrian Research Centre Seibersdorf
World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
,. ·,

FOREWORD
The provisiOn of high quality meteorological in situ surface observations remains
fundamentally important for the World Weather Watch and World Climate Programmes of the
World Meteorological Organization. The trend to automation of surface data acquisition
systems began in the seventies of this century, accelerated in the eighties and nineties and is
expected to continue world-wide in the coming decades. It is anticipated that in about thirty
years, automated surface weather observing systems will be installed at most sites.
Automation of the surface observation function has the advantages of reducing
operating costs, improving timeliness and eliminating the subjectivity inherent in human
observations of parameters such as visibility and cloudiness. However, new generations of
automatic weather stations will inevitably introduce inhomogeneities into the climatic record
because of changes in sensor design, in observation techniques, in the interrogation time and
data processing algorithms. This will be particularly noticeable at sites that have been
converted from conventional human observations. Data based on measurements from the same
site and under the same environmental conditions but by different systems usually show slight
differences which can introduce inhomogeneities into the climatic record. The homogeneity
of the time series of meteorological data is critical to the analysis of climate variability and
the detection of climate change.
National guidelines and standards for the recording and archiving data from automatic
stations vary from one country to another. This is particularly evident in the variety of sensors
used in automatic stations. In the scientific analysis of time series of climatic records, one can
often see the influence of the changes in measuring and averaging techniques. The papers
presented in this report demonstrate the differences that exist in a variety of existing networks
of automatic stations, some of which can lead the introduction of inhomogeneities in the
climatic record. This information exchanged at this workshop will serve to help WMO
Members in guiding the future development of sensors for automatic station and networks.
It will also be helpful in the management and scientific analysis of climatic data from
automatic stations.
(Dr J. Kruus)
President of the Commission
for Instruments and Methods of Observation
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION AND OPENING ADDRESS
THE ITALIAN AGROMETEOROLOGICAL NETWORK
M. C. Beltrano, M.R.A.A.F. -Ufficio Centrale di Ecologia Agraria,
B. Cittarelli, A. Flore, A. Girolamo, E. Paone, FINS/EL -
U.A. Territorio e Ambiente, Italy 7
QUALITY CONTROL OF METEOROLOGICAL AUTOMATIC MEASUREMENTS
Philippe De Bosschere, Meteo-France, France 13
REQUIREMENTS ON NEW AUTOMATIC WEATHER STATIONS
OF THE DEUTSCHER WETTERDIENST
J. Dibbern, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Germany 15
PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS AND ISSUES RELATED TO
SURFACE WEATHER AUTOMATION IN CANADA
D. Dockendorff and S. MeN air, Atmospheric Environment Service, Canada 19
EXPERIENCES WITH AUTOMATIC WEATHER STATIONS
IN OPERATIONAL AND CLIMATOLOGICAL USE IN FINLAND
E. Elomaa and P. Valkovuori, Finland 25
AUTOMATIZATION OF THE MEASUREMENTS AT THE
PROFESSIONAL METEOROLOGICAL STATIONS IN SLOVAKIA
B. Gajar and M. Ondras, Slovak Hydrometeoro/ogical/nstitute, .Siovakia 31
THE SWISS AUTOMATIC NETWORKS: ASPECTS OF OPERATION,
RELIABILITY AND CONTROL OF MEASUREMENTS
P. Htichler, Swiss Meteorological Institute, Switzerland 37
AUTOMATED METEOROLOGICAL STATIONS IN THE NETWORK
OF THE SLOVAK HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL INSTITUTE
D. Jakubfk, J. Dane and M. Ondra5, Slovak Hydrometeorologicallnstitute, Slovakia 41
CENTRAL DATA PROCESSING AND QUALITY CONTROL
PROCEDURES FOR AUTOMATIC STATIONS AT THE
SWISS METEOROLOGICAL INSTITUTE (SMI)
M. Kiene, Swiss Meteorological Institute, Switzerland 47
AUTOMATIC STATIONS IN THE METEO-FRANCE NETWORKS
M. Leroy, Meteo-France, France 53
AUTOMATIC WEATHER STATIONS AND INFRASTRUCTURE
A. N. Mazee, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, Netherlands 57
AN OVERVIEW OF ASOS ALGORITHMS
V. L. Nadolski and M. D. Gifford, National Weather Service, USA 63
OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCES WITH THE
AUTOMATED SURFACE OBSERVING SYSTEM- ASOS
V. L. Nadolski, National Weather Service, USA 69
FIRST EXPERIENCES WITH THE INTERCOMPARISON OF
METEOROLOGICAL DATA MEASURED BY TRADITIONAL
INSTRUMENTS AND SENSORS OF AWS IN HUNGARY
P. Nemeth, Hungarian Meteorological Service, Hungaria 73
AUTOMATIC BOARD WEATHER STATION ABWST OPERATED
ONBOARD CONTAINER AND MERCHANT SHIPS AS WELL AS
ON BOARD RESEARCH AND FISHERY PROTECTING VESSELS
G. 0/brOck, Deutscher Wetterdienst, lnstrumentenamt Hamburg, Germany 79
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE AUTOMATION OF THE SYNOPTIC
AND CLIMATOLOGICAL NETWORKS OF THE HUNGARIAN
METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE
T. Prager, Hungarian Meteorological Service, Hungaria 63
MORE THAN 10 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE WITH THE AUTOMATIC
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATION NETWORK IN AUSTRIA
E. Rude/, Centra/Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, Austria 89
AUTOMATION OF OBSERVATIONS IN THE NETHERLANDS
W.C.M. van Dijk, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, Netherlands 95
FINAL DISCUSSION 101
A NEW LOW-COST AWS FOR CLIMATOLOGICAL
AND ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING
D. Gaytandjiev, K. Krusteva, H. /vanov, NIMH, Bulgaria
K. Krustev, R. Petrov, KRUS Electronics&Co., Bulgaria (now-show paper) 103
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS 108
LIST OF PUBLICATIONS -------------------
INTRODUCTION
This publication contains the papers which were presented at the INTERNATIONAL
WORKSHOP ON EXPERIENCES WITH AUTOMATIC WEATHER STATIONS ON OPERATIONAL USE WITHIN
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICES. lt summarizes the status of development In the area of
automation of surface weather stations.
The papers are focused on the following topics:
a) Descriptions of various automation programs. equipment used and
future plans
b) Experiences and problems encountered with various automatic
weather observing equipment
c) Data quality assurance and monitoring procedures
I hope that participants of the workshop and other readers of this report will find the
contents useful and Informative.
I should like to express my gratitude to the sponsors and eo-sponsors for the planning
and the arrangements made for the workshop.
Ernest Rudel
Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics
Vienna, Austria
OPENING ADDRESS
it is a pleasure for me to welcome all the participants of this workshop here In
Vienna. The great response to the call for papers and the participation of more then
50 experts in the workshop underlines the importance of the problems which will be
discussed here. Our institute has a long-standing tradition In International meetings.
So I want to remember that the first International congress of meteorology was held
In Vienna 1873 which lead to the foundation of the predecessor of WMO.
According to the goals of WMO and with regard to rapidly changing technology
this workshop should help to lead to a better knowledge of the compatibility of data
from Automatic Weather Stations and to unify performance of algorithms and
software used In this new devices.
Peter Stelnhauser
Permanent Representative of Austria with WMO
THE ITALIAN AGROMETEOROLOGICAL NETWORK
M.C. BEL TRANO
M.R.A.A.F.- Ufficio Centrale di Ecologia Agraria, Roma
B. CITTARELLI, A. FLORE, A. GIROLAMO, E. PAONE
FINS IEL- U.A. Territorio e Ambiente, Roma
1.1NTRODUCTION
The Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Alimentary and Forestal Resources (MRAAF)Is carrying out new facilities In
the field of agrometeorology In the framework of the National Agriculturallnfonmatlon Service (SIAN).
The activities started In 1988 and were developed under the technical coordination and responsibility of the
Central Office of Agrarian Ecology (UCEA), with the basic contribution of the private company FIN SI EL.
The main achievements realized up to now are the following ones:
The National Agrometeorologlcal Data Base, gathering all the meteorological data collected by the national
and local services was set up. The available Informations are used to evaluate the climatic conditions
regarding the agricultural areas In terms of space-time variability and anomalies of the mora significant
meteorological parameters.
Climatological and meteorological models were developed In order to analyse, monitor and forecast
meteorological phenomena for agricultural purposes.
The realization of the Italian Agrometeorologlcal Network Is still in progress. All the stations are automatic
and unattended. In the next future, live stations will be installed each year. All these stations Integrate and
Increase the Air Force national network and the Regional local networks.
The management of agrometeorological stations Is one of the most Important Items of the MRAAF activity.
2.THE ITALIAN AGROMETEOROLOGICAL NETWORK
The arch~ecture of the Italian Agrometeorologlcal Network (IAN) is composed of the following elements:
DEC systems, Installed at SIAN, In Rome, dedicated to network remote management, acquls~lon of
agrometeorologicallnlormatlon and connection of end users;
automatic weather stations;
telecommunication lines.
A VAX 4000 Is dedicated to the Central Network Management (CNM), in order to manage the
telecommunication lines and the correct running of the automatic stations. lt manages telecommunication links
to the Air Force's Meteorological Service, to the Regional Services and to other Institutions (ENEA, ecc)
connected to the Italian Agrometeorologlcal Service.
Telecommunication links are operative between SIAN's National Agrometeorological Service and the
Meteorological Service of the Air Force, the Agrometeorological Service of the Puglla Region, and EN EA.
Connections are being established w~h the Agrometeorological Service of Sardinia Region (Consorzlo SAR), the
Agrometeorological Service of Veneto Region (CSIM) and with the Genoa's University.
Through the link to the Air Force's Meteorological Service the system acquires in real-time measured and
elaborated meteorological data available on GTS system (SYNOP, TEMP, GRIB messages, ecc.).
By the connection to the Regional Services the system acquires data measured by local Regional Network.
All the data acquired Is decoded and validated.
Meteorological data aretransltorlly loaded on a ROB Data Base In order to allow the following operations:
data validation (I level and lllevel);
users inquiry;
users massage switching.
Only the most recent two months of data are kept on the CNM DEC system, available for real-time inquiries and
file transfers.
The CNM system Is linked through a SNA Gateway to an IBM/3090 system, where data are deflnnlvely archived
on tapes and on the DB2 tables of the Agrometeorologlcal National Data Base, where they are made available
for on-line Inquiries.
The number and the position of the National Agrometaorologlcal weather stations was planned by means of a
specific methodology, with the object to Integrate the existing meteorological networks (In particular, the Air
Defence Meteorological Service's network and the networks of Regional Services) and to minimize the sampling
error of ground meteorological fields.
At present the IAN Is composed by 26 Installed weather stations. Six further stations are being Installed and will
be put in action in a few months; it is planned to Install 5 further weather stations each year.
The standard configuration of a IAN station Is composed of the following sensors :
air temperature at 2 m, 50 cm, 5 cm (archived every hour)
relative humidity at 2 m, 50 cm (archived every hour)
rainfall at2 m (archived every ten minutes)
wind speed at 10 m, 2 m and wind direction all 0 m (archived every ten minutes)
air pressure (archived every hour)
solar global radiation (archived every hour)
sunshine duration (archived every hour)
heat soil flux (archived every hour)
soil temperature at ·10 cm, -50 cm (archived every three hours)
evaporation (archived once a day)
leaf wetness at 2 m (archived every hour).
3. DATA CHECK
Meteorological data, collected by the Agrometeorologlcal Network or by other Services, are always validated at
SIAN before being used. Suspect or wrong data are never corrected: they are always "flagged" by means of a
specific character, so that users can decide to elaborate or not the suspect data.
Data check reports give the start to different courses of action, depending on the type of error discovered. For
stations belonging to IAN, a maintanance intervention Is immediately activated.
Agrometeorological data checking Is realized with different algorithms at different levels, depending on the
availability of control data and on the needs of the final users.
First level validation is realized with automatic algorithms on real time data which must be immediately made
available to connected users. lt Is applied In real time during the decoding elaboration to the SYNOP, SYREP
and TEMP data acquired from GTS system; every three hours ~ Is applied to data received by the IAN
agrometeorological network and to data received by other local services.
Validation of second level is realized, tlplcally on a daily basis, with automatic algorithms which fundamentally
compare hourly data with daily data (i.e.: hourly temperature versus dally minimum and maximum temperature).
First level and second level checks reports are archived on a log file, which Is printed dally In order to make any
problems evident and to activate maintenance actions on the stations belonging to IAN.
Data checked with first and second level validation algorithms are temporarily archived on DEC, available for
remote user requests, and are transferred dally to the IBM/3090 system where they are archived on the
National Agrometeorologlcal Data Base with a temporary quality flag that gets confirmed or corrected after the
third level validation which is next described.
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