A World Area Forecast Centre (WAFC) is a

meteorological Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not ...

centre that provides real-time meteorological information

broadcast Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...

s for

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...

purposes. These broadcasts are supervised by

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) in order to fulfill requirements of the ICAO Annex 3 covering meteorological information which is necessary for flights. The role of the WAFCs is to provide meteorological messages with worldwide coverage for pilot briefing. They are usually part of the Pre-Flight Information Bulletin (PIB). WAFC provides various types of data, including OPMET information, T4 charts (which are currently obsolete but some portions are still distributed due to legacy reasons), and

GRIB GRIB (GRIdded Binary or General Regularly-distributed Information in Binary form) is a concise data format commonly used in meteorology to store historical and forecast weather data. It is standardized by the World Meteorological Organization's C ...

and

BUFR The Binary Universal Form for the Representation of meteorological data (BUFR) is a binary data format maintained by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The latest version is BUFR Edition 4. BUFR Edition 3 is also considered current for op ...

charts - these are Wind and Temperature charts and

SIGWX {{refimprove, date=June 2010 SIGWX is a Significant Weather Chart defined by ICAO. Weather charts being issued by World Area Forecast Centres (from meteorological offices in London and Washington), presenting the most important meteorological ph ...

charts (Significant Weather Chart) for SWH (high levels) and SWM (medium levels). There are only two World Area Forecast Centres, each providing a backup for the other. These are the UK

Met Office The Meteorological Office, abbreviated as the Met Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and is led by CEO Penelope E ...

and Washington

NOAA 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 ...

, working in duplicate so it would be possible to replace each other in a case of failure. Each of these two services operates its own satellite-based broadcast system to distribute data to airports all over the world. The UK

is called SADIS (SAtellite DIstribution System) and mainly covers Europe, Asia, Indian Ocean and Africa. The U.S. NOAA broadcast system is the International Satellite Communications System (ISCS) and mainly covers America and the Pacific Ocean.

External links

UK Met Office SADIS page

National Weather Service Instruction 10-806, World Area Forecast System
{{The Met Office Aviation safety Weather forecasting