Below are plots of SYNOP/BUOY/radiosonde BUFR coverage for January April 2024 - reports as decoded at ECMWF, some reports not in standard BUFR are not decoded. Daily coverage of BUFR reports (updated automatically) is available from the Monitoring Maps. See also timeseries and maps from the NWP system: Monitoring of Conventional observations and WDQMS: https://wdqms.wmo.int .
...
About 90% of stations now report in BUFR (NB. the SYNOP maps below do not include stations reporting with WIGOS station identifiers (WSIs) - unless these map to a traditional 5 digit identifier). BUFR coverage for Europe is essentially complete apart from three NMSs (Bulgaria, Moldova and North Macedonia). For some countries stations/reports designated as "additional data" only are received in TAC but not in BUFR. Light blue markers indicate that fewer BUFR reports are received than SYNOP reports - in most cases the BUFR is six-hourly but the SYNOPs are three-hourly. (Unlike TEMP data, below, alphanumeric SYNOP reports reformatted into BUFR are generally acceptable.) The main event in late 2019 was the cessation of alphanumeric SYNOP reports from China on 3 December 2019 (not reflected in the plot as ECMWF receives Chinese SYNOPs reformatted to TAC in Washington! We intend to stop processing these reformatted reports - also from other areas - but some care is needed). As can be seen from the top map various stations are only available in BUFR. ECMWF is gradually assimilating a larger proportion of BUFR surface reports. There has been only minor progress in the migration over the last year. The lower map shows the frequency of reporting in BUFR - WIGOS now recommends global exchange of hourly reports (Australia and Canada improved provision of hourly reports during 2023. In late January ECMWF started retrieving hourly reports from the USA via a WIS2 server - these have WSIs and are not yet shown below).
(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.)
BUOY coverage
On 6 June 2016 ECMWF started passively monitoring BUFR BUOY data in its operational system, assimilation of pressure data started in July 2016, many alphanumeric (FM18) reports ceased on 2 November 2016. For drifting buoys the BUFR feed is complete now helped by the fact that fewer data producers are involved (there are still 12 Indian moored buoys reporting only in FM18 as at mid-2021). In mid-2016 there were 51 pressure-reporting buoys reporting in BUFR but not in FM18, some of these were moored buoys including 7 PIRATA or RAMA buoys which also report subsurface temperature and salinity. Template 315008 is used for moored buoys and 315009 for drifting buoys. More details of the marine data can be found in the Marine and ocean observations pages (one issue is the move from 5-digit to 7-digit identifiers, this means that some newer buoys cannot really be coded using FM18). In December 2018 NOAA moored buoys started reporting in the correct 315008 template (they are mainly close to the US coast, but a few are further offshore). Moored buoys from Canada and the UK still report in SHIP format and are not shown in the plot below. Note that about half the buoys, shown in light blue, do not report pressure (especially those in the tropical Pacific and the Mediterranean, they are deployed to measure SST and currents). In the second quarter of 2019 we started receiving moored buoy data for the North American Great Lakes, but there is a complication in that they report both Pmsl and Pstn (marine TAC reports only contained Pmsl), but don't give the height of Pstn.
(Grey: TAC reports but no BUFR, Dark blue - BUFR reports including pressure, Light blue - BUFR reports without pressure. Circles/triangles - drifting/moored buoys.)
Ship data
In 2017/18 a number of European ships started using new EUCAWS hardware and software. They report (with identifier EUC*) in BUFR only. French TAC ship reports ceased in mid-January 2020. Some NMSs (most recently DWD - Germany) have stopped sending alphanumeric reports.
...
(Grey: TAC reports but no BUFR, Purple: BUFR reports but no TAC, Red *: position error. Blue: both BUFR and TAC, light blue indicates fewer ascents in BUFR. Triangle - ship report, X - wind-only report.)
The plot below distinguishes native BUFR (stations reporting valid radiosonde drift positions): high/low resolution (dark/light blue, using 300 level threshold) from reformatted TEMP (orange). There are now high resolution reports from all continents.
Almost all reformatted TEMP reports are sent as separate parts (A/B/C/D), this is contrary to the BUFR coding rules (there should be a single report containing data for the whole ascent) and reformatted TEMP reports are regarded as unusable by ECMWF and most other NWP centres. BUFR reports generated directly from the radiosonde raw data are much better.
...