IWXXM (ICAO Meteorological Information Exchange Model) is a format for reporting

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...

information in

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

/ GML. IWXXM includes

/ GML-based representations for products standardized in

International Civil Aviation Organization The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international sc ...

(ICAO) Annex III and

World Meteorological Organization The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. The WMO originated from the Internati ...

(WMO) No. 49, Vol II, such as

METAR METAR is a format for reporting weather information. A METAR weather report is predominantly used by aircraft pilots, and by meteorologists, who use aggregated METAR information to assist in weather forecasting. Raw METAR is the most common form ...

/ SPECI, TAF,

SIGMET SIGMET, or Significant Meteorological Information (AIM 7-1-6), is a severe weather advisory that contains meteorological information concerning the safety of all aircraft. Compared to AIRMETs, SIGMETs cover more severe weather. Types There a ...

AIRMET An AIRMET, or Airmen's Meteorological Information, is a concise description of weather phenomena that are occurring or may occur (forecast) along an air route that may affect aircraft safety. Compared to SIGMETs, AIRMETs cover less severe weather: ...

, Tropical Cyclone Advisory, Volcanic Ash Advisory and Space Weather Advisory. IWXXM products are used for operational exchanges of meteorological information for use in aviation. Unlike the traditional forms of the ICAO Annex III / WMO No. 49 products, IWXXM is not intended to be directly used by

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

s. IWXXM is designed to be consumed by software acting on behalf of

s, such as display software.

History

IWXXM Version 1 was introduced in October 2013, representing

, SPECI, TAF and

formats as specified in

(ICAO) Annex III, Amendment 76. IWXXM became an optional format for the bilateral exchange of weather reports in November 2013 when the amendment became applicable. The seventeenth WMO Congress approved IWXXM 1.1, a WMO standard data representation to be included in the new Volume I.3 of WMO-No. 306, Manual on Codes. IWXXM Version 2 was issued in August 2016 with the introduction of new products including AIRMET, Tropical Cyclone Advisory and Volcanic Ash Advisory, loads of improvements and bug fixes. Supported by the sixteenth session of the WMO Commission for Basic System in 2016, a slightly revised version IWXXM 2.1 has been approved by the sixty-ninth WMO Executive Council in May 2017. A patch (IWXXM Version 2.1.1) had been released and approved in Nov 2017 to fix minor issues on validation and examples. IWXXM Version 3 was first made available as version 3.0RC1 in July 2018. Major changes include restructuring and simplifying with the removal of Observations and Measurements model (O&M), addition of the new Space Weather Advisory and other changes with regard to Amendment 78 to ICAO Annex 3, and numerous fixes and enhancements. IWXXM 3.0RC2 was released in October 2018 for further comments. Another release candidate IWXXM 3.0RC3 was released in April 2019. Approval was received in October 2019 and IWXXM 3.0RC4 was released before publishing of the finalized version on 7 November 2019. IWXXM Version 2021-2New proposal on IWXXM versioning
/ref> was published in Nov 2021 meeting new requirements in Amendments 79 and 80 to ICAO Annex 3, including the introduction of the new WAFS Significant Weather Forecast to be provided by WAFCs by 2023.

Regulation

IWXXM is regulated by WMO in association with ICAO. IWXXM is defined at the technical regulation level in ''WMO No.306 Volume I.3''''WMO No.306 Volume I.3, Manual on Codes Part D - Representations derived from data models''
/ref> to meet the regulatory requirements described in ''WMO Technical Regulation No. 49 Vol II'' or ''ICAO Annex III''. Another document ''ICAO Doc 10003''''ICAO Doc 10003, Manual on the Digital Exchange of Aeronautical Meteorological Information''
/ref> is also available to provide a high level description of the model.

Development

The WMO Commission for Observation, Infrastructures and Information Systems (INFCOM
Task Team on Aviation Data or TT-AvData
(previously Commission for Basic System (CBS) Task Team on Aviation XML or TT-AvXML) and ICAO Meteorological Panel (METP) Working Group on Meteorological Information Exchange
WG-MIE
are involved in the development of IWXXM. The e-mail group tt-avdata@groups.wmo.int was created (Subscription required. Visit https://groups.wmo.int/ for details) to collect feedback from users. A GitHub repositor
https://github.com/wmo-im/iwxxm
has been created to engage community participation.

Relationship with WXXMWeather Data Models
/ref>

WXXM
is governed by FAA and EUROCONTROL for international products outside of those represented by ICAO or WMO. WXXM 1.0 was released in 2007. There were no new releases since the publication of WXXM 3.0.0 in 2019.

References

External links

WMO IWXXM Schema RepositoryWMO Web-Accessible Codes Registry
{{Earth-based meteorological observation Aviation meteorology Weather forecasting Meteorological data and networks XML-based standards