NCEP ADP Global Upper Air and Surface Weather Observations (PREPBUFR format)
d337000
<p> NCEP ADP Global Upper Air and Surface Weather Observations (PREPBUFR format) are composed of a global set of surface and upper air reports operationally collected by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). These include land surface, marine surface, radiosonde, pibal and aircraft reports from the Global Telecommunications System (GTS), profiler and US radar derived winds, SSM/I oceanic winds and TCW retrievals, and satellite wind data from the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS). The reports can include pressure, geopotential height, temperature, dew point temperature, wind direction and speed. Report time intervals range from hourly to 12 hourly. </p> <p> These data are the output from the PREPBUFR processing performed at NCEP, which is the final step in preparing the majority of conventional observational data for assimilation into the various NCEP analyses including the North American Model (NAM) and NAM Data Assimilation System (NDAS) unified grid-point statistical interpolation (GSI) analysis (the "NAM" and "NDAS" networks), the Global Forecast System (GFS) and Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS) unified grid-point statistical interpolation (GSI) analysis (the "GFS" and "GDAS" networks), the Rapid Refresh (RAP) unified grid-point statistical interpolation (GSI) analysis (the "RAP" network), the Real Time Mesoscale Analysis (RTMA) unified grid-point statistical interpolation (GSI) analysis (the "RTMA" network), and the Climate Data Assimilation System (CDAS) spectral statistical interpolation (SSI) analysis (the "CDAS" network). </p> <p> This step involves the execution of series of programs designed to assemble observations dumped from a number of on-line decoder databases, encode information about the observational error for each data type as well the background (first guess) interpolated to each data location, perform both rudimentary multi-platform quality control and more complex platform-specific quality control, and store the output in a monolithic BUFR file, known as PREPBUFR. The background guess information is used by certain quality control programs while the observation error is used by the analysis to weigh the observations. The structure of the BUFR file is such that each PREPBUFR processing step which changes a datum (either the observation itself, or its quality marker) records the change as an "event" with a program code and a reason code. Each time an event is stored, the previous events for the datum are "pushed down" in the stack. In this way, the PREPBUFR file contains a complete history of changes to the data throughout all of the PREPBUFR processing. The most recent changes are always at the top of the stack and are thus read first by any subsequent data decoder routine. It is expected that the data at the top of the stack are of the highest quality. </p> <p> The data provided here are also available in NetCDF and ASCII formats, which can be accessed by following the "Get a subset" link on the <a href="https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds337.0/#!access">ds337.0 data access page</a>. The NetCDF datafiles are converted from PREPBUFR format using the pb2nc utility in the Model Evaluation Tools (MET) software package. </p>
dataset
https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d337000/
protocol: https
name: Dataset Description
description: Related Link
function: information
https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d337000/dataaccess/
protocol: https
name: Data Access
description: Related Link
function: download
climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere
dataset
revision
2021-03-30
WEATHER STATIONS > WEATHER STATIONS
AIRCRAFT
PIBAL > Pilot Balloons
AWOS > Automated Weather Observing System
ASOS > Automated Surface Observing System
Ships
SATELLITES > SATELLITES
BUOYS
revision
2025-10-03
DROPSONDES
HUMIDITY SENSORS > HUMIDITY SENSORS
NEXRAD > NEXt Generation RADar
PRESSURE SENSORS > PRESSURE SENSORS
RADIOSONDES > RADIOSONDES
SSM/I > Special Sensor Microwave/Imager
THERMOMETERS > THERMOMETERS
WIND PROFILERS > WIND PROFILERS
revision
2025-10-03
WRF > WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) Modeling
revision
2025-10-03
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ALTITUDE > GEOPOTENTIAL HEIGHT
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ALTITUDE > STATION HEIGHT
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE MEASUREMENTS
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > SEA LEVEL PRESSURE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > UPPER AIR TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > WATER VAPOR INDICATORS > DEW POINT TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > SURFACE WINDS
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > UPPER LEVEL WINDS
EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN TEMPERATURE > SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN WINDS > SURFACE WINDS
revision
2025-10-03
1997-04-30
2025-10-08
publication
2008-04-30
daily
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
None
pointOfContact
NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange
name: NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange
description: The Geoscience Data Exchange (GDEX), managed by the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) at NSF NCAR, contains a large collection of meteorological, atmospheric composition, and oceanographic observations, and operational and reanalysis model outputs, integrated with NSF NCAR High Performance Compute services to support atmospheric and geosciences research.
function: download
pointOfContact
2025-10-09T01:23:48Z