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Below are plots of SYNOP/radiosonde BUFR coverage for 28 November to 2 December 2014 2 - 8 March 2015 - reports as decoded at ECMWF, some reports not in standard BUFR are not decoded.
Please can data producers ensure that there is a reasonable overlap of TAC and BUFR data on the GTS (at least two months, EUMETNET recommendation is six months), any attempt to rush the change will result in more errors, extra work for NWP centres and possibly worse forecasts. Most countries give notice via METNOs or the WMO newsletter. Note also that reformatted TEMP reports still as separate parts are not good regulation BUFR and cause problems for NWP centres (some more than others).
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Almost 70% of stations now report in BUFR, reports from Japan are using an extended template - not processed at ECMWF yet. Iceland is now reporting BUFR from almost 100 stations, compared to about 20 in TAC, there are also extra stations from Brazil. For some countries (eg Japan) stations/reports designated for national use only are received in TAC but not in BUFR.
Three countries (UK, Eire and Netherlands, shown green) ceased TAC SYNOP transmission on the GTS on 3rd or 4th November 2014 (see SYNOP ). ECMWF is now assimilating BUFR surface reports from these countries (plus Germany).
(Grey: TAC reports but no BUFR, Purple: BUFR reports but no TAC, Red *: position error. Light/dark blue indicates that there are less/more than 60% of the reports available in BUFR.)
Radiosonde coverage
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(Grey: TAC reports but no BUFR, Purple: BUFR reports but no TAC, Red *: position error. Light/dark blue indicates low/high vertical resolution BUFR data. Black ring - ship report, or identifier error!)
It can be difficult to distinguish proper BUFR from reformatted TEMP. The plot below (showing data received at the Met Office) shows stations reporting radiosonde drift in blue or green.
(Orange: reformatted TEMP. Green: stations reporting over 400 levels. Dark blue: <400 levels but drift reported. Light blue: occasional or zero drift values reported, data appears to be reformatted TEMP.)
with a red halo.
The maximum number of levels reported (below) gives some information on the resolution of the reports . (1-29 grey; 30-99 light blue; 100-299 dark blue; 300-999 green; 1000-2999 orange; over 3000 cyan.)
