Below are plots of SYNOP/BUOY/radiosonde BUFR coverage for December 2016 - 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 regulation BUFR and cause problems for NWP centres (some more than others).
Surface (SYNOP) coverage
About 80% of stations now report in BUFR, approximately constant over the last year. (Iceland is reporting BUFR from almost 100 stations, compared to about 20 in TAC. ECMWF is not currently decoding BUFR data from Austria since a template change, a decoder change that fixes this is expected soon.) For some countries stations/reports designated for national use 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.
Countries that have ceased TAC SYNOP transmission on the GTS are shown green (if this is not up-to-date please let me know) and labelled 'Post SYNOP' (see SYNOP ). ECMWF is assimilating BUFR surface reports from these countries plus some others.
(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, many alphanumeric (FM18) reports ceased on 2 November 2016. For drifting buoys the BUFR feed is almost complete now helped by the fact that fewer data producers are involved (there are about 20 Indian and a few Japanese drifting buoys not using the approved template as yet). 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 E-SURFMAR 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). The plot below does not include the moored buoys that currently report in TM13 (SHIP) code - at some point these will start using the 315008 template. 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).
(Grey: TAC reports but no BUFR, Dark blue - BUFR reports including pressure, Light blue - BUFR reports without pressure. Circles/triangles - drifting/moored buoys.)
Radiosonde coverage
Almost 70% of stations report in BUFR, about 25% report native BUFR with roughly 45% reporting reformatted TEMP (see "structure" page and plots below). The proportion of native reports is gradually growing (with improvements from the UK, Korea and Poland during 2016). Reports may be incomplete (eg data above 100 hPa missing). Reports from the ASAP ships are now only available in BUFR format. A smattering of other stations (green dots on the map, these include 17607, Cyprus; 33008; Belarus; 47115, Korea) are BUFR only, one or two of these are new to the GTS and never reported in TEMP code.
(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). High resolution reports come mainly from European and Australian stations.
