MADIS Mesonet Database Now Contains Over 20,000 Surface Stations
In July 2006, the ESRL Global Systems Division's (GSD) Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS) surpassed 20,000 surface stations in its mesonet database. The database leverages NOAA's partnerships with international, other federal, state, and local government agencies, and the private and academic sectors by integrating NOAA and other-agency observations. MADIS accesses observations from these stations in many different formats, units and time stamps, unifies them, and provides real-time access through a single uniform database.
MADIS is a data management system developed at ESRL/GSD that ingests, integrates, quality controls, and distributes surface and upper-air datasets to the meteorological community. Among these datasets is an integrated mesonet database containing high-frequency, real-time observations from thousands of stations across the country and around the world. The mesonet database includes Road Weather Information System (RWIS) observations from state Departments of Transportation, as well as real-time observations from the Remote Automated Weather Stations (RAWS) network, the Cooperative Mesonets in the Western U.S. (MesoWest) network, the WeatherBug network operated by AWS Convergence Technologies, Inc., and many others. Organizations receiving MADIS data feeds include National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices, the NWS National Centers for Environmental Prediction, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and many major universities and commercial weather businesses. Saved observations are available online via the MADIS FTP server; real-time observations are viewable on the Web.
MADIS integrates other-agency and private-network observations with NOAA observations and makes them easily accessible and usable to the greater meteorological community. By doing so, it is serving one of NOAA's main mission goals to "Serve Society's Needs for Weather and Water Information." Additionally, MADIS supplies non-NOAA data providers with quality control and station monitoring information to assist in their maintenance activities and to enhance and promote the mutual benefits of public/private data sharing.
Contact information
Name: Patricia A Miller
Tel: 303-497-6365
Patricia.A.Miller@noaa.gov