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The Citizen Weather Observer Program (CWOP) is a network of privately owned electronic
weather station
A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasts and to study the weather and climate. The measurements taken include tempera ...
s concentrated in the United States but also located in over 150 countries. Network participation allows volunteers with computerized weather stations to send automated surface weather observations to the
National Weather Service
The National Weather Service (NWS) is an Government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weathe ...
(NWS) by way of the Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS). This data is then used by the
Rapid Refresh
The Rapid Refresh (RR or RAP) is a numerical weather prediction (NWP) model. The model is designed to provide short-range hourly Weather forecasting, weather forecasts for North America. The Rapid Refresh was officially made operational on 1 May 2 ...
(RAP) forecast model to produce short term forecasts (3 to 12 hours into the future) of conditions across the
contiguous United States
The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...
. Observations are also redistributed to the public.
Origin
The CWOP was originally set up by
amateur radio
Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...
operators experimenting with
packet radio
In digital radio, packet radio is the application of packet switching techniques to digital radio communications. Packet radio uses a packet switching protocol as opposed to circuit switching or message switching protocols to transmit digital dat ...
, but now includes Internet-only connected stations, as well as amateur radio
Automatic Packet Reporting System
Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) is an amateur radio-based system for real time digital communications of information of immediate value in the local area. Data can include object Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates, weather st ...
(APRS) stations. , more than 13,000 stations worldwide report regularly to the network.
Description
The Citizen Weather Observer Program is a program to collect
surface weather observation
Surface weather observations are the fundamental data used for safety as well as climatological reasons to forecast weather and issue warnings worldwide. They can be taken manually, by a weather observer, by computer through the use of automate ...
s from thousands of privately operated weather stations, into th
FindUdatabase, and forward it to the Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System
MADIS, operated by the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...
(NOAA).
[David Helms]
Citizen Weather Observer Program (CWOP) Information.
Retrieved on 2008-01-12.
FindU
The FindU database is a set of privately operated Internet servers, run by Steve Dimse, (amateur radio callsign K4HG). Numerous IGates (Internet Gateways) receive broadcast amateur radio
Automatic Packet Reporting System
Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) is an amateur radio-based system for real time digital communications of information of immediate value in the local area. Data can include object Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates, weather st ...
(APRS) packets containing position and short messages (including telemetry such weather observations), and forward the data to the FindU servers vi
APRS-ISon the Internet. Weather observations may be polled directly from FindU, and the data is forwarded to MADIS for ingest. APRS messages may also originate directly from computers on the Internet without being broadcast on the radio waves.
MADIS
The Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System
MADIS integrates weather observations from numerous different sources, including CWOP via FindU, and drives a number of different
weather forecasting
Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology forecasting, to predict the conditions of the Earth's atmosphere, atmosphere for a given location and time. People have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia a ...
products. Incoming data are subjected to temporal and spatial consistency checks, and quality flags are stored with the data, to enable users to access the most trustworthy data possible. From MADIS, CWOP data is also re-distributed to other users such as
Mesowest.
Ease of sending data
The amateur radio connection makes it inexpensive and simple for an individual to install consumer-level weather sensors at a point of interest, connect them to a radio transmitter via a simple APRS modem, and start sharing weather reports with forecasters worldwide. Solar power and radio transmission makes it possible to drop completely self-contained weather sensors on unattended and wireless sites, allowing for a dense set of sample measurements to be collected.
See also
*
Mesonet
In meteorology and climatology, a mesonet, portmanteau of mesoscale network, is a network of automated weather and, often, environmental monitoring stations designed to observe mesoscale meteorological phenomena and/or microclimates.
Dry lin ...
*
Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network
The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network, or CoCoRaHS, is a network of volunteer weather observers in the United States, Canada, and the Bahamas that take daily readings of precipitation and report them to a central data store over ...
(CoCoRaHS)
*
Cooperative Observer
The NOAA Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) is a citizen weather observer network run by the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) and National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). Over 8,700 volunteers from the fifty states and all terr ...
Program
*
Significant Weather Observing Program (SWOP)
*
Skywarn
Skywarn (sometimes stylized as SKYWARN) is a program of the National Weather Service (NWS). Its mission is to collect reports of localized severe weather in the United States. These reports are used to aid forecasters in issuing and verifying sev ...
*
Safecast
References
External links
Citizen Weather Observer Programlinks and information, after Bob Bruninga, WB4APR
Information page about APRS weather reporting by Steve Dimse
* CWO
description by Russ Chadwick
* CWO
wikiby Russ Chadwick
* Sample FindU weather report, fro
W0CHP-13in Plainview, Minnesota
{{Earth-based meteorological observation
Crowdsourcing
Meteorological data and networks