Gateway File Services

Introduction

The U.S. National Weather Service provides anonymous FTP access to files containing collectives of coded observations and forecasts.  The collectives are in the same format as exchanged on the GTS and Family of Services.  The internal format of the files is described in the document OSO File Name Standards. The naming conventions for the files are described in the document File and Directory Name Standards.  The data is directly available at the server tgftp.nws.noaa.gov via anonymous FTP.

Information Available

The following code forms are available on the server.  The set of data available includes all of the data types listed here that are received at the NWS Telecommunication Gateway. However, these files do not include additional data as defined by WMO Resolution 40.

Data Types List:

• AIREP
• AMDAR
• DRIBU
• DROP Sonde
• METAR
• PILOT
• PILOT SHIP
• Profiler (BUFR)
• RECCO
• SHIP
• SIGMET
• SPECI
• Supplementary Climatological Data (ASOS)
• SYNOP
• TAF
• TEMP
• TEMP SHIP

File and Directory Descriptions

See Directory and File Naming Standards for information about directory and file name formats.

Delivery Details

Data is updated on the FTP server every five minutes with the latest information received from NWS communications sources. File names within each data subcategory directory have the format sn.nnnn where nnnn is a four-digit number ranging from 0000 to 0300. Files are written in sequence with the file sn.0000 following sn.0300. This scheme provides unique file names for at least the previous 24 hours of data receipt.

The first line of the file is the time when the file was last updated and consists of the abbreviated day of the week, abbreviated month name, day of month, hour, minute, second, time zone, and year.  All remaining lines in the file have the form:

path [tab] name

where path is the data subcategory path, starting at the data root and name is the name of the most recently written file for that subcategory.

Data files are written only when data of that subcategory type is available.

Further questions or comments concerning data in SL.us008001 path may be directed to NWS.ISG@noaa.gov.