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MIDAS: Global Marine Meteorological Observations Data

The global marine meteorological observations data contains marine meteorological values, such as wave heights and periods, wind speed and direction, present weather, and air and sea temperature, measured during the hour ending at the stated date and time. The data is collected by worldwide observation stations and transmitted within the following message types: Ship SYNOP, which is also referred to as FM 13-IX SHIP, FM 18-X BUOY, Light Vessel, Marid, Marine logbooks, NAVY, OWS, PLAT/RIG, and VOF. In this dataset the different message types are all described by the SHIP message name. Data are available from 1854 to present.

The data consist of:

Offshore wind (speed and direction)

Weather (present, past)

Cloud (amount, type, base amount, base height)

Pressure (mean sea level)

Visibility

Temperature (air, dew-point, wetbulb, sea)

Relative humidity

Wave (direction, period, height)

Wind-wave (period, height)

Swell (direction, -wave period, height)

Ship direction and distance

Maximum gust speed and period

The wind speed is given to the nearest knot, direction to the nearest 10 degrees, and the time of the maximum gust is given to the nearest 0.1 hour. The wind direction from which the wind blows, is measured in Degrees (true). The entry for an east wind is 090, for a south wind it is 180 and so on clockwise. Note that zero values in both wind speed and wind direction fields indicate that there was no wind blowing at the time of observation.

The temperature and dew point are given to the nearest 0.1 degree Celsius, the pressure is given to the nearest 0.1 hectopascal, the cloud base height and the visibility are given to the nearest decametre. Cloud amount is reported in oktas.

The past weather is recorded as a number between 0-9 which details what the weather has been like in the last 6 hours for observations at 00, 06, 12, 1800 UTC, the last 3 hours for observations at 03, 09, 15, 2100 UTC and the previous hour at any other times. The past weather is only recorded when a manual observation is done at the station.

Marine reports are defined by position (latitude and longitude) and by time. Duplicates can exist at a specified position and time, e.g. when ships are alongside for bunkering, so the identifier of the ship or buoy is part of the primary key of the entity.

A great many ships do not include a valid call sign in their reports; the call sign may be missing or invalid. When this occurs, Midas will substitute the call sign value “SHIP”.

Simple

Date (Publication)
2006-08-07T14:58:31
Date (Creation)
2006-08-07T14:58:31
Identifier
https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/77910bcec71c820d4c92f40d3ed3f249
Identifier
NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC) / 77910bcec71c820d4c92f40d3ed3f249
Author
  Met Office - author
Met Office , FitzRoy Road , Exeter , EX1 3PB ,
0370 900 0100
Custodian
  NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC) - custodian
British Atmospheric Data Centre , STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory , Harwell Oxford , OX11 0QX , UK
+44(0)1235 446432
Distributor
  NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC) - distributor
British Atmospheric Data Centre , STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory , Harwell Oxford , OX11 0QX , UK
+44(0)1235 446432
Principal investigator
  Met Office - principal_investigator
Met Office , FitzRoy Road , Exeter , EX1 3PB ,
0370 900 0100
pointofContact
  NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC) - point_of_contact
British Atmospheric Data Centre , STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory , Harwell Oxford , OX11 0QX , UK
+44(0)1235 446432
Publisher
  NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC) - publisher
British Atmospheric Data Centre , STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory , Harwell Oxford , OX11 0QX , UK
+44(0)1235 446432
Maintenance and update frequency
monthly Monthly
Update scope
dataset Dataset
Keywords
  • Met Office
  • MIDAS
  • Marine Observations
  • wave height
  • PRECIPITATION
  • ATMOSPHERE
  • ATMOSPHERICPHENOMENA
  • SNOW
  • ATMOSPHERICRADIATION
GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
  • atmospheric conditions
Access constraints
otherRestrictions Other restrictions
Other constraints
These data have multiple licences for different applications. Always make sure to read the appropriate licence for full data usage limitations details. Other usage may not be permitted. Restricted data: please submit an application using the REQUEST ACCESS link for access.
Use constraints
otherRestrictions Other restrictions
Other constraints
Under the following licence https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/licences/specific_licences/ukmo_agreement.pdf, appropriate use of these data may fall under academic use. This message is intended as guidance, always read the full licence. When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record.
Other constraints
Under the following licence https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/licences/specific_licences/ukmo_agreement_gov.pdf, appropriate use of these data may fall under policy use. This message is intended as guidance, always read the full licence. When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record.
Spatial representation type
grid Grid
Metadata language
EnglishEnglish
Topic category
  • Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere
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Begin date
1854-01-01T00:00:00
Unique resource identifier
WGS 84
Distribution format
  • Data are ASCII formatted ()

Distributor
  NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC) - Data Center Contact
British Atmospheric Data Centre , STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory , Harwell Oxford , OX11 0QX , UK
+44(0)1235 446432
OnLine resource
CEDA Data Catalogue Page

Detail and access information for the resource

OnLine resource
DOWNLOAD

Download Data

OnLine resource
Met Office - Marine Automatic Weather Station (MAWS) network doceumentation

No further details.

OnLine resource
Link to column headings in comma separated text file

No further details.

OnLine resource
Link to column headings in Excel file

No further details.

OnLine resource
MIDAS User Guide version v20200921

No further details.

OnLine resource
Information on versioning in MIDAS data

No further details.

OnLine resource
BADC Doc: Global Marine Observations (MO) Table details

No further details.

OnLine resource
Copy of Met Office Hadley Centre report on the "Digitization of Metform data and Conversion to Flatfile Integer Format"

No further details.

OnLine resource
Met Office MIDAS Quick User Guide

No further details.

Hierarchy level
dataset Dataset

Conformance result

Date (Publication)
2010-12-08
Statement
Data collated by the Met Office and archived in the Met Office's MIDAS database. Data are extracted from a sub-set of available tables and delivered to BADC approximately on a monthly basis as flat files.
File identifier
77910bcec71c820d4c92f40d3ed3f249 XML
Metadata language
EnglishEnglish
Character set
8-bit variable size UCS Transfer Format, based on ISO/IEC 10646 UTF8
Parent identifier
Met Office Integrated Data Archive System (MIDAS) Land and Marine Surface Stations Data (1853-current) 220a65615218d5c9cc9e4785a3234bd0
Hierarchy level
dataset Dataset
Date stamp
2025-11-15T03:00:29
Metadata standard name
UK GEMINI
Metadata standard version
2.3
Point of contact
  NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)
British Atmospheric Data Centre , STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory , Harwell Oxford , OX11 0QX , UK
+44(0)1235 446432
 
 

Overviews

Spatial extent

N
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E
W
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Keywords

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
atmospheric conditions

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