The Met Office European synoptic stations reported hourly surface data from 141 European stations for the period 1990-1996. The dataset includes parameters such as temperature, wind, rainfall, cloud cover, past and present weather, and visibility. Note - this has been superseded by the MIDAS Land Surface Station Dataset.

The Met Office European synoptic stations reported hourly surface data from 141 European stations for the period 1990-1996. Parameters for this dataset include: present and past weather, cloud amount, type and base height, wind direction and speed, visibility, temperature measurements, water vapour pressure, relative humidity, mean sea level pressure, rainfall and gust speed and direction. Note - this has been superseded by the MIDAS Land Surface Station Dataset. Additional background information can be found at the Monthly Weather Report: Vol. 108, 1991, ref. UDC 551 506 1(41-1) , produced by the Met Office.

The ship based SYNOP messages measurements describe hourly observations from sea based stations (ships, rigs, platforms and moored buoys) distributed globally. The observations cumulate in around 10,000 reports a day, giving measurements of parameters such as wind speed and direction, maximum and minimum air temperature, sunshine duration, rainfall accumulation, and cloud type. The data are collected by observation stations worldwide and transmitted within the ship SYNOP message.

The global radiation observation data contain hourly and daily radiation amounts, including those no longer being reported. The measurements of global solar irradiation amount, diffuse solar irradiation amount, direct irradiation amount, irradiation balance amount, and global horizontal illumination are recorded by observation stations worldwide and transmitted within SYNOP, HCM, AWSHRLY, MODLERAD, ESAWRADT and DRADR35 messages. The data span from 1947 to present.

Observational data extracted from the Met Office's MetDB system. Data include surface and upper air observations and some satellite data. These data are from a number of different message types covering data from land and ship surface data measurements through to upper air observations from wind profilers, radiosonde ascents and aircraft measurements and also satellite measurements. Data arrive at the Met Office as per standard messages transmitted from source (e.g. SYNOP, METARS, TEMP message types) and are then decoded within the MetDB system. CEDA receives a text output from the MetDB system of these deciphered messages which are then processed into the BADC-CSV format where possible. Messages are split up by observation date at this stage. METARS and CLIMAT data are not decoded by the Met Office and are stored as per the original message. Details about the contents of each message type are given in the links in the 'online resources' section of this record. "Raw" data for all message types are available through the /raw folder within the archive. Each raw file contains messages received within a given period of time at the Met Office and are not sorted by observation date.