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LAND SYNOP reports from land stations collected by the Met Office MetDB System

The land based SYNOP messages measurements describe hourly observations from land stations distributed globally. The observations cumulate in around 60,000 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 land SYNOP message.

Data are extracted from the Met Office's MetDB system before being sent to CEDA for archiving. These extractions occur at the 4 principal synoptic periods (00-06, 06-12, 12-18 and 18-00 UT).

The dataset contains a range of measurements including:

- Wind speed and wind direction

- Maximum and minimum air and grass temperature

- Horizontal and vertical visibility

- Snow depth

- Dew-point temperature

- Relative humidity

- 3 -hour pressure change

- Height and period of wind waves

- Cloud height and type

- Radiation in last 24 hours

- Maximum gust period

- Past and present weather

- Rainfall accumulation

- Precipitation amount

- Sunshine duration

The wind speed and vertical gust speed are given to the nearest metre per second, and the vertical gust acceleration to the nearest metre per second squared. 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 air temperature, grass temperature and dew-point temperature are measured in Kelvin.

The cloud height, visibility, snow depth, and wind-wave height are given in metres.

Sunshine duration is recorded over 24 hours and over one hour. For the former, the measurement is in hours, but for the latter the measurement is in minutes.

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.

The relative humidity is measured as a percentage.

Documentation and Links to further information and references (see linked documentation on this record):

Some general information about surface station readings can be obtained from the abridged version of "MIDAS Data Users Guide", provided by the Met Office. This document describes the meteorological surface data in the Met Office Database - MIDAS. This guide is rich in information and is aimed at those with little familiarity with observing methods or instrumentation.

Details of the WMO Meteorological codes used at weather observing stations (daily and hourly weather) explain the codes used in this dataset further.

Simple

Date (Publication)
2008-08-08T13:58:04
Date (Creation)
2008-08-08T13:58:04
Identifier
https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/9f80d42106ba708f92ada730ba321831
Identifier
NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC) / 9f80d42106ba708f92ada730ba321831
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
continual Continual
Update scope
dataset Dataset
Keywords
  • Met Office
  • MetDB
  • SYNOP
  • meteorology
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
2009-04-30T23:00:00
Unique resource identifier
WGS 84
Distribution format
  • Data are BADC-CSV 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

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OnLine resource
WMO Code Manual

No further details.

OnLine resource
WMO Meteorological codes

No further details.

OnLine resource
Further information about the Land SYNOP message

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OnLine resource
MIDAS User Guide

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Hierarchy level
dataset Dataset

Conformance result

Date (Publication)
2010-12-08
Statement
Data are extracted from the Met Office's "metDB" system and supplied to BADC. These are then processed to generate BADC-CSV files, where possible. METARS and CLIMAT message types are stored as original message types only within http://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/ukmo-metdb/raw
File identifier
9f80d42106ba708f92ada730ba321831 XML
Metadata language
EnglishEnglish
Character set
8-bit variable size UCS Transfer Format, based on ISO/IEC 10646 UTF8
Parent identifier
Met Office MetDB system: Surface, upper air and satellite data 8ee156b6ed41b153e85dbf02a4134513
Hierarchy level
dataset Dataset
Date stamp
2025-11-15T03:01:24
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
S
E
W
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Keywords

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
atmospheric conditions

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