Time for timeliness

Re: Time for timeliness

by Timo Proescholdt -
Number of replies: 4

Dear Karl, others who provided feedback by email and community,

the release candidate of SYNOP timeliness is now available for test in https://wdqms-test.wmo.int . The proposed release contains the a new monitoring category "timeliness" for the six-hour, daily and monthly periods for the SYNOP NWP category. Timeliness is the difference between the reception time(*) and the observation time. Detailed timeseries allow to see actual and average values over time by station. The release candidate includes your feedback shared earlier. As you can see, the contrast of the light-blue has been increased. The single center 6-hour timeseries (accessible via the popup) contains a timeseries of actual as well as 6h aggregate timeliness values. (combined mode and daily/monthly aggregations only showing aggregate values in the series)
We also improved the timeseries charts, particularly to be able to show a wide range of values (log-scale) and remove outliers (exceeding the interval of [-60,720] minutes).

Timeliness is so far based on data reported by DWD and ECMWF. In combined mode the center with the smallest timeliness determines the color and whether a red marker ring (indicating "negative timeliness") is shown. While the timeliness data from DWD and ECMWF is now stable and has been quality controlled, there are still rare instances of extreme timeliness values which are related to internal processing. WDQMS does not include these into the calculation of the mean, but displays them in the time-series. Centers are monitoring these and will fix issues as they are detected.

The release also contains major non-functional improvements in the software architecture. We would appreciate if you could also test the system in general in addition to the timeliness functions.

If no major bugs are discovered during testing, the release of WDQMS v1.6 is expected for next Wednesday 18/6/2025. An update of the user manual will be available by that time, too.

The release of timeliness is a major step for WDQMS in that now all of availability, quality and timeliness are in the system. Making timeliness available will allow to identify and hopefully resolve timing related issues in the GTS/WIS. It will also allow to use timeliness in the context of GBON.

(*) The manual will document the exact definition of reception time, by center.


with kind regards,
WDQMS development team

In reply to Timo Proescholdt

Re: Time for timeliness

by Timo Proescholdt -
Dear WIGOS community,

thank you for your testing of the timeliness release.

We have realized that additional time is needed for quality control and decided to postpone the release planned for tomorrow.

We are planning to release timeliness next week, once full QC has been performed on metric reported by centers as well as the front-end.

with kind regards,
WDQMS development team
In reply to Timo Proescholdt

Re: Time for timeliness

by Karl Monnik -
Dear Timo and WDQMS development team

Thanks for your ongoing work on this. The colour of dots over oceans are much better.

1) Could you change the colour of the negative timeliness ring to something like green or yellow? A red ring on a red dot is difficult to distinguish.
2) If the Legend 'reporting negative timeliness' item is clicked, then positive timeliness stations disappear. This is the opposite action to the other items in the legend which disappear when the legend item is clicked. In a way it is what is needed, hiding the positive timeliness stations. Maybe it can be worded differently.
3) at the monthly timescale, there is quite discrepancy between ECMWF and DWD data. Looking at AUS, May 2025, Surface pressure, most station report negative timeliness for DWD and positive for ECMWF (only 8 negative). But the DWD values show as positive in the timeseries view.
4) When I download a file for timeliness for DWD & ECMWF surface pressure and daily and 2025-06-10, and sort the file, no negative timeliness values can be found.

Regards
Karl
In reply to Karl Monnik

Re: Time for timeliness

by Samantha LINNERTS -
Dear Timo and WDQMS development team

Thank you for the work on the timeliness.

I presented the Timeliness to the WDQMS focal point at SAWS and the RWC-SA staff.
1. They want to know if it would be possible to use the same colours (availability and quality) for consistency in terms of timeliness.

2. Is there a way to have the stations with "Reporting negative timeliness" display on the map when the "positive timeliness" is switched off in the legend?

3. Is there a possibility of having an additional column in the data file for the number of negative timeliness?
name wigosid country code in OSCAR longitude latitude timeliness (sec) negative_timeliness variable date center



Thank you
Regards
Sam
In reply to Samantha LINNERTS

Re: Time for timeliness

by Timo Proescholdt -
Dear Karl, Sam and all,

we deployed a new version in the test server last week addressing some of the issues raised here.
- The "negative timeliness" filter in the legend is now grey (disabled) by default. Clicking on it activates the filter and limits the visible stations to those having negative timeliness. We hope this is now expected behaviour.
- The actual timeliness values of a single station can be downloaded from the timeseries chart in the popup for 6h individual center. The general download via the map provides the same aggregate values as are the basis of the dots on the map.
- We added a new column "nr_negative_timeliness" to the regular download which represents the number of negative timeliness values from the station in the period in question.
- Timeseries and map are now aligned with respect to treatment of number of negative.

As to the color scheme. We think it would be better to use different colors for timeliness. WDQMS results are mainly communicated visually through the map. We think it is important that timeliness results are not confused with availability.

There is still some discrepancy between centers as regards the number of negative, as you rightly indicate. It is probably best to wait until full QC has been done on the data provided by centers before releasing in production, but this can be discussed further in the team.

with kind regards,
WDQMS dev team