PWS (Present Weather Systems)

The objectives
The objective of the PWS Programme was to support the Members and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in their efforts towards the automatisation of surface meteorological observing.
 
PWS-SCI  (SCI stands for "scientific") was a study to assess the state of the art of automatic observation of "present weather" (rain, snow, fog, etc.) at ground level and to identify possible solutions for improvement. The specific tasks were :
  • to identify the physical variables to be measured,
  • to analyse the current limitations of present weather automatic instruments,
  • to assess the scientific possibilities to overcome these limitations,
  • to propose new research and development work if appropriate.
The PWS-SCI Report is available as a .pdf file . For a best printing quality go to http://www.knmi.nl/~meulenvd/eumetnet/E-PWS-Sci/report/PWS-SCI_final_report.pdf
 
PWS-GTS (Global Telecommunication System, i.e. the data communication system of WMO) was a pilot project for the exchange of observations from automatic weather stations, including present weather parameters, on the GTS using BUFR coding. This project contributed to the efforts of the WMO Commission for Basic Systems (CBS) to use binary table driven codes for data exchange. The specific tasks were :
  • to identify the NMSs willing to participate,
  • to propose to PB-OBS a detailed plan for the project,
  • to identify a subset of quantities to be exchanged,
  • to develop a template for hourly exchange, based on existing tables,
  • to investigate the availability of suitable BUFR encoding/decoding software and propose a new development if needed,
  • to coordinate the implementation in coordination with WMO to contribute fully to CBS objective of promoting the use of table driven codes.
The PWS-GTS Report is available as a .pdf file
 
Organisation
The Responsible Member was the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI).
The Programme Manager for PWS-SCI was Dr. Jitze van der Meulen.
The Programme Manager for PWS-GTS was Dr Dick Blaauboer.
These studies have been completed.
Dated : 18 June 2008