UK Synoptic data (July 1998-Present) from the UKMO.
---------------------------------------------------

Synoptic station data from the UKMO synoptic stations network over the period 
July 1998- present is now available. Visit http://www.badc.rl.ac.uk/data/synoptic-new/ for more
details. 





IMPORTANT NOTE:
===============

The Met. Office has been improving and modernising its internal archive 
structure over the course of the last year, which has involved replacing 
both the near-real-time archive and the climate data archive. 
The changes are very positive and will result in smoother access to a wider 
range of data products. In the meantime the transition has meant that the 
BADC has had to make some changes to its met data archives, which are outlined 
below:

1. Radiosonde Data
   ---------------
Following the transition to the new radiosonde archive, the BADC's
data set has been extended from the UK and Europe to cover the whole
globe. The data set is also updated daily rather than monthly, so you
should be able to get yesterday's data today. We have also adopted the
conventions used in the new archive - so temperatures are now given in
Kelvins rather than degrees C and winds are in m/s rather than knots. 

The new global data (July 1998- present) set is described in:
     http://www.badc.rl.ac.uk/data/radiosglobe/

The old UK/European data set (1990 - Jun 1998) is still described in:
     http://www.badc.rl.ac.uk/data/radios/


2. Synoptic (hourly) surface station data
   --------------------------------------
The transition to extracting synoptic station data from the new
archive has proved a little more complex because the parameters which
make up the old BADC data set were spread over several parts of the
new Met Office archive. We decided that it would be simpler and 
more efficient to break up the extraction into several stages. 

The new (July 1999 - present) data set currently holds only hourly
weather observations, but within the next week or so it will be
extended to include rainfall data. In the slightly longer term 
(early 1999) it will also have other data from the synoptic stations,
for example, radiation, hours of sunshine, mean winds. The data set
will be updated every day.

The new synoptic data is now documented at:
    http://www.badc.rl.ac.uk/data/synoptic-new/

The old synoptic data sets (1990-June 1998) are documented at
    http://www.badc.rl.ac.uk/data/synoptic/


3. Climate (daily) station data
   ----------------------------

There has been a break in the updates to the climate station data since
July 1998 following the demise of the old Met Office climate data bank. 
Barring unexpected problems we expect to reinstate updates by the middle
of December 1998 the new Met Office "MIDAS" archive. 

If you have any queries about these changes please contact the BADC
support line. We shall send out further status reports as the 
new data sets develop.


BADC Support 17/11/98